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THE WRITINGS OF 

MARK TWAIN 

Volume XXIII 








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MY DEBUT 


AS A 

LITERARY PERSON 

WITH 


Other Essays and Stories 


BY 

MARK TWAIN 

(Samuel L. diemens) 



HARTFORD, CONN. 

THE AMERICAN PUBLISHING COMPANY 
19,03 

Copiy A- 




Two Copies Received 


THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 


APR 28 (903 


/9c 3 


CUSS XXo. N«, 




copyright Entry 



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COPY A. 


Copyright, i8q8, 1899, and 1901, by The Century Company 
Copyright, 1893, by J. Brisben Walker 
Copyright, 1899, 1901, and 1902, by Harper & Brothers 
Copyright, 1898 and 1899, by The Forum Publishing Company 
Copyright, 1899, by The S. S. McClure Company 
Copyright, 1893, by UNDERHILL & NICHOLS 
Copyright, 1901, by Irving S. Underhill 
Copyright, 1899, by Samuel L. Clemens 
Copyright, 1903, by The American Publishing Company 


all rights reserved 



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H« U. PLIIIPTON a CO., PRINTERS A, BINDERS, 
NORWOOD, MASS., U.8.A. 


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ILLUSTRATIONS 


PHO TO GRA VURE 

LISTENING TO HER HISTORY F. Luis Mora . Frontispiece 

JIMMY SAVES THE EMPEROR F. Luis Mora . . . I 99 

STILLMAN ACCUSES SHERLOCK 

HOLMES F, Luis Mora . . . 357 



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CONTENTS 


MY d6bUT as a literary PERSON II 

THE ESQUIMAU MAIDEN’S ROMANCE 48 

THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG .... 72 

MY FIRST LIE AND HOW I GOT OUT OF IT ... . 145 

THE BELATED RUSSIAN PASSPORT 157 

TWO LITTLE TALES 1 86 

ABOUT PLAY ACTING 202 

DIPLOMATIC PAY AND CLOTHES . 2l6 

IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD? 232 

MY BOYHOOD DREAMS 246 

THE AUSTRIAN EDISON KEEPING SCHOOL AGAIN . . 255 

EXTRACTS FROM ADAM’S DIARY 260 

THE DEATH DISK 276 

A DOUBLE-BARRELED DETECTIVE STORY .... 293 


Acknowledgment is hereby made to Harper & Brothers, The Century 
Company, The Forum, The Cosmopolitan, The S. S. McClure Company, 
Irving S. Underhill, and Doubleday, Page & Company for courtesy 
shown in allowing the reprint in this volume of a number of their 
articles. 


(viii) 


MY D^BUT AS A LITERARY 
PERSON 

WITH 

OTHER ESSAYS AND STORIES 




MY DEBUT AS A LITERARY PERSON 

I N those early days I had already published one 
little thing (“ The Jumping Frog”) in an East- 
ern paper, but I did not consider that that counted. 
In my view, a person who published things in a 
mere newspaper could not properly claim recog- 
nition as a Literary Person: he must rise away 
above that; he must appear in a magazine. He 
would then be a Literary Person; also, he would be 
famous — right away. These two ambitions were 
strong upon me. This was in 1866. I prepared 
my contribution, and then looked around for the 
best magazine to go up to glory in. I selected the 
most important one in New York. The contribu- 
tion was accepted. I signed it ” Mark Twain”; 
for that name had some currency on the Pacific 
coast, and it was my idea to spread it all over the 
world, now, at this one jump. The article appeared 
in the December number, and I sat up a month 
waiting for the January number; for that one would 
contain the year’s list of contributors, my name 
would be in it, and I should be famous and could 
give the banquet I was meditating. 

(lO 


12 


My Debut as a Literary Person 

I did not give the banquet. I had not written the 
“ Mark Twain ” distinctly; it was- a fresh name to 
Eastern printers, and they put it “Mike Swain “ or 
“ MacSwain,“ I do not remember which. At any 
rate, I was not celebrated, and I did not give the 
banquet. I was a Literary Person, but that was all 
— a buried one ; buried alive. 

My article was about the burning of the clipper- 
ship Hornet Qw the line, May 3, 1866. There were 
thirty-one men on board at the time, and I was in 
Honolulu when the fifteen lean and ghostly sur- 
vivors arrived there after a voyage of forty-three 
days in an open boat, through the blazing tropics, 
on ten days' rations of food. A very remarkable 
trip ; but it was conducted by a captain who was a 
remarkable man, otherwise there would have been 
no survivors. He was a New-Englander of the best 
sea-going stock of the old capable times — Captain 
Josiah Mitchell. 

I was in the islands to write letters for the weekly 
edition of the Sacramento Union, a rich and in- 
fluential daily journal which hadn’t any use for 
them, but could afford to spend twenty dollars a 
week for nothing. The proprietors were lovable 
and well-beloved men: long ago dead, no doubt, 
but in me there is at least one person who still holds 
them in grateful remembrance ; for I dearly wanted 
to see the islands, and they listened to me and gave 
me the opportunity when there was but slender 
likelihood that it could profit them in any way. 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


13 


I had been in the islands several months when the 
survivors arrived. I was laid up in my room at the 
time, and unable^ to walk. Here was a great occa- 
sion to serve my journal, and I not able to take 
advantage of it. Necessarily I was in deep trouble. 
But by good luck his Excellency Anson Burlingame 
was there at the time, on his way to take up his post 
in China, where he did such good work for the 
United States. He came and put me on a stretcher 
and had me carried to the hospital where the ship- 
wrecked men were, and I never needed to ask a 
question. He attended to all of that himself, and I 
had nothing to do but make the notes. It was like 
him to take that trouble. He was a great man and 
a great American, and it was in his fine nature to 
come down from his high office and do a friendly 
turn whenever he could. 

We got through with this work at six in the even- 
ing. I took no dinner, for there was no time to 
spare if I would beat the other correspondents. I 
spent four hours arranging the notes in their proper 
order, then wrote all night and beyond it; with this 
result : that I had a very long and detailed account 
of the Hornet episode ready at nine in the morning, 
while the correspondents of the San Francisco 
journals had nothing but a brief outline report — for 
they did n’t sit up. The now-and-then schooner was 
to sail for San Francisco about nine; when I reached 
the dock she was free forward and was just casting 
off her stern-line. My fat envelope was thrown by 


14 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


a strong hand, and fell on board all right, and my 
victory was a safe thing. All in due time the ship 
reached San Francisco, but it was my complete re- 
port which made the stir and was telegraphed to the 
New York papers, by Mr. Cash; he was in charge 
of the Pacific bureau of the New York Herald at 
the time. 

When I returned to California by and by, I went 
up to Sacramento and presented a bill for general 
correspondence at twenty dollars a week. It was 
paid. Then I presented a bill for “ special ” service 
on the Hornet matter of three columns of solid non- 
pareil at a hundred dollars a column. The cashier 
didn’t faint, but he came rather near it. He sent 
for the proprietors, and they came and never uttered 
a protest. They only laughed in their jolly fashion, 
and said it was robbery, but no matter; it was a 
grand “scoop” (the bill or my Horfiet report, I 
didn’t know which); “pay it. It’s all right.” 
The best men that ever owned a newspaper. 

The Hornet survivors reached the Sandwich 
Islands the 15th of June. They were mere skinny 
skeletons; their clothes hung limp about them and 
fitted them no better than a flag fits the flagstaff in 
a calm. But they were well nursed in the hospital; 
the people of Honolulu kept them supplied with all 
the dainties they could need ; they gathered strength 
fast, and were presently nearly as good as new. 
Within a fortnight the most of them took ship for 
San Francisco ; that is, if my dates have not gone 


My D^but as a Literary Person 


15 


astray in my memory. I went in the same ship, a 
sailing-vessel. Captain Mitchell of the Hornet was 
along; also the only passengers the Hornet had 
carried. These were two young gentlemen from 
Stamford, Connecticut — brothers: Samuel Fergu- 
son, aged twenty-eight, a graduate of Trinity Col- 
lege, Hartford, and Henry Ferguson, aged eighteen, 
a student of the same college. The elder brother 
had had some trouble with his lungs, which induced 
his physician to prescribe a long sea- voyage. This 
terrible disaster, however, developed the disease 
which later ended fatally. The younger brother is 
still living, and is fifty years old this year (1898). 
The Hornet was a clipper of the first class and 
a fast sailer; the young men’s quarters were roomy 
and comfortable, and were well stocked with books, 
and also with canned meats and fruits to help 
out the ship-fare with; and when the ship cleared 
from New York harbor in the first week of Janu- 
ary, there was promise that she would make quick 
and pleasant work of the fourteen or fifteen thou- 
sand miles in front of her. As soon as the cold 
latitudes were left behind and the vessel entered 
summer weather, the voyage became a holiday 
picnic. The ship flew southward under a cloud of 
sail which needed no attention, no modifying or 
change of any kind, for days together. The young 
men read, strolled the ample deck, rested and 
drowsed in the shade of the canvas, took their meals 
with the captain, and when the day was done they 


16 My D^but as a Literary Person 

played dummy whist with him till bedtime. After 
the snow and ice and tempests of the Horn, the ship 
bowled northward into summer weather again, and 
the trip was a picnic once more. 

Until the early morning of the 3d of May. Com- 
puted position of the ship 112° 10' west longitude; 
latitude 2° above the equator; no wind, no sea — 
dead calm ; temperature of the atmosphere, tropical, 
blistering, unimaginable by one who has not been 
roasted in it. There was a cry of fire. An un- 
faithful sailor had disobeyed the rules and gone into 
the booby-hatch with an open light to draw some 
varnish from a cask. The proper result followed, 
and the vessel’s hours were numbered. 

There was not much time to spare, but the cap- 
tain made the most of it. The three boats were 
launched — long-boat and two quarter-boats. That 
the time was very short and the hurry and excite- 
ment considerable is indicated by the fact that in 
launching the boats a hole was stove in the side of 
one of them by some sort of collision, and an oar 
driven through the side of another. The captain’s 
first care was to have four sick sailors brought up 
and placed on deck out of harm’s way — among 
them a “ Forty ghee.” This man had not done a 
day’s work on the voyage, but had lain in his ham- 
mock four months nursing an abscess. When we 
were taking notes in the Honolulu hospital and a 
sailor told this to Mr. Burlingame, the third mate, 
who was lying near, raised his head with an effort, 


My Debut as a Literary Person 17 

and in a weak voice made this correction — with 
solemnity and feeling : 

“ abscesses ! He had a family of them. 

He done it to keep from standing his watch.’* 

Any provisions that lay handy were gathered up 
by the men and the two passengers and brought and 
dumped on the deck where the ‘ ‘ Portyghee ’ ’ lay ; 
then they ran for more. The sailor who was telling 
this to Mr. Burlingame added : 

“We pulled together thirty-two days’ rations for 
the thirty- one men that way.’’ 

The third mate lifted his head again and made 
another correction — with bitterness : 

The Portyghee et twenty-two of them while he 
was soldiering there and nobody noticing. A 
damned hound.’’ 

The fire spread with great rapidity. The smoke 
and flame drove the men back, and they had to stop 
their incomplete work of fetching provisions, and 
take to the boats with only ten days’ rations 
secured. 

Each boat had a compass, a quadrant, a copy 
of Bowditch’s Navigator y and a nautical almanac, 
and the captain’s and chief mate’s boats had chro- 
nometers. There were thirty-one men all told. 
The captain took an account of stock, with the 
following result: four hams, nearly thirty pounds 
of salt pork, half-box of raisins, one hundred 
pounds of bread, twelve two-pound cans of oysters, 
clams, and assorted meats, a keg containing four 


18 My Debut as a Literary Person 

pounds of butter, twelve gallons of water in a forty- 
gallon “ scuttle-butt,” four one-gallon demijohns 
full of water, three bottles of brandy (the property 
of passengers), some pipes, matches, and a hundred 
pounds of tobacco. No medicines. Of course the 
whole party had to go on short rations at once. 

The captain and the two passengers kept diaries. 
On our voyage to San Francisco we ran into a calm 
in the middle of the Pacific, and did not move a rod 
during fourteen days; this gave me a chance to 
copy the diaries. Samuel Ferguson’s is the fullest; 
I will draw upon it now. When the following para- 
graph was written the ship was about one hundred 
and twenty days out from port, and all hands were 
putting in the lazy time about as usual, as no one 
was forecasting disaster. 

May 2. Latitude i° 28' N., longitude iii° 38' W. Another hot 
and sluggish day; at one time, however, the clouds promised wind, and 
there came a slight breeze — just enough to keep us going. The only 
thing to chronicle to-day is the quantities of fish about; nine bonitos were 
caught this forenoon, and some large albacores seen. After dinner the 
first mate hooked a fellow which he could not hold, so he let the line go 
to the captain, who was on the bow. He, holding on, brought the fish 
to with a jerk, and snap went the line, hook and all. We also saw 
astern, swimming lazily after us, an enormous shark, which must have 
been nine or ten feet long. We tried him with all sorts of lines and a 
piece of pork, but he declined to take hold. I suppose he had ap- 
peased his appetite on the heads and other remains of the bonitos we 
had thrown overboard. 

Next day’s entry records the disaster. The three 
boats got away, retired to a short distance, and 
stopped. The two injured ones were leaking badly; 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


19 


some of the men were kept busy bailing, others 
patched the holes as well as they could. The cap- 
tain, the two passengers, and eleven men were in the 
long-boat, with a share of the provisions and water, 
and with no room to spare, for the boat was only 
twenty-one feet long, six wide, and three deep. 
The chief mate and eight men were in one of the 
small boats, the second mate and seven men in the 
other. The passengers had saved no clothing but 
what they had on, excepting their overcoats. The 
ship, clothed in flame and sending up a vast column 
of black smoke into the sky, made a grand picture 
in the solitudes of the sea, and hour after hour the 
outcasts sat and watched it. Meantime the captain 
ciphered on the immensity of the distance that 
stretched between him and the nearest available land, 
and then scaled the rations down to meet the emer- 
gency : half a biscuit for breakfast ; one biscuit and 
some canned meat for dinner; half a biscuit for 
tea; a few swallows of water for each meal. And 
so hunger began to gnaw while the ship was still 
burning. 

May 4. The ship burned all night very brightly, and hopes are that 
some ship has seen the light and is bearing down upon us. None seen, 
however, this forenoon, so we have determined to go together north and a 
little west to some islands in 18° or 19° north latitude and 114° to 115° 
west longitude, hoping in the meantime to be picked up by some ship. 
The ship sank suddenly at about 5 a. m. We find the sun very hot and 
scorching, but all try to keep out of it as much as we can. 

They did a quite natural thing now : waited 
several hours for that possible ship that might have 


20 


My D^but as a Literary Person 


seen the light to work her slow way to them through 
the nearly dead calm. Then they gave it up and 
set about their plans. If you will look at the map 
you will say that their course could be easily de- 
cided. Albemarle Island (Galapagos group) lies 
straight eastward nearly a thousand miles ; the islands 
referred to in the diary indefinitely as ‘ ‘ some 
islands” (Revillagigedo Islands) lie, as they think, 
in some widely uncertain region northward about 
one thousand miles and westward one hundred or 
one hundred and fifty miles. Acapulco, on the 
Mexican coast, lies about northeast something 
short of one thousand miles. You will say random 
rocks in the ocean are not what is wanted ; let them 
strike for Acapulco and the solid continent. That 
does look like the rational course, but one presently 
guesses from the diaries that the thing would have 
been wholly irrational — indeed, suicidal. If the 
boats struck for Albemarle they would be in the 
doldrums all the way ; and that means a watery per- 
dition, with winds which are wholly crazy, and blow 
from all points of the compass at once and also per- 
pendicularly. If the boats tried for Acapulco they 
would get out of the doldrums when half-way there, 
— in case they ever got half-way, — and then they 
would be in a lamentable case, for there they would 
meet the northeast trades coming down in their 
teeth, and these boats were so rigged that they 
could not sail within eight points of the wind. So 
they wisely started northward, with a slight slant to 


My D6but as a Literary Person 21 

the west. They had but ten days’ short allowance 
of food ; the long-boat was towing the others ; they 
could not depend on making any sort of definite 
progress in the doldrums, and they had four or five 
hundred miles of doldrums in front of them yet. 
They are the real equator, a tossing, roaring, rainy 
belt, ten or twelve hundred miles broad, which 
girdles the globe. 

It rained hard the first night, and all got drenched, 
but they filled up their water-butt. The brothers 
were in the stern with the captain, who steered. 
The quarters were cramped ; no one got much 
sleep. “ Kept on our course till squalls headed us 
off.” 

Stormy and squally the next morning, with 
drenching rains. A heavy and dangerous “cob- 
bling” sea. One marvels how such boats could 
live in it. It is called a feat of desperate daring 
when one man and a dog cross the Atlantic in a 
boat the size of a long-boat, and indeed it is ; but 
this long-boat was overloaded with men and other 
plunder, and was only three feet deep. “We 
naturally thought often of all at home, and were 
glad to remember that it was Sacrament Sunday, 
and that prayers would go up from our friends for 
us, although they know not our peril.” 

The captain got not even a cat-nap during the 
first three days and nights, but he got a few winks 
of sleep the fourth night. “The worst sea yet.” 
About ten at night the captain changed his course 
2 


22 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


and headed east-northeast, hoping to make Clipper- 
ton Rock. If he failed, no matter; he would be in 
a better position to make those other islands. I will 
mention here that he did not find that rock. 

On the 8th of May no wind all day; sun blister- 
ing hot; they take to the oars. Plenty of dolphins, 
but they couldn’t catch any. “ I think we are all 
beginning to realize more and more the awful situa- 
tion we are in.” ‘‘It often takes a ship a week to 
get through the doldrums; how much longer, then, 
such a craft as ours.” ‘‘We are so crowded that 
we cannot stretch ourselves out for a good sleep, 
but have to take it any way we can get it.” 

Of course this feature will grow more and more 
trying, but it will be human nature to cease to set it 
down ; there will be five weeks of it yet — we must 
try to remember that for the diarist; it will make 
our beds the softer. 

The 9th of May the sun gives him a warning : 
‘‘Looking with both eyes, the horizon crossed 
thus -f.” ‘‘ Henry keeps well, but broods over our 

troubles more than I wish he did.” They caught 
two dolphins; they tasted well. ‘‘The captain 
believed the compass out of the way, but the long- 
invisible north star came out — a welcome sight — 
and indorsed the compass.” 

May lo, ‘‘latitude 7° o' 3" N., longitude iii° 
32' W.” So they have made about three hundred 
miles of northing in the six days since they left the 
region of the lost ship. ‘‘Drifting in calms all 


My D6but as a Literary Person 23 

day.” And baking hot, of course; I have been 
down there, and I remember that detail. ‘‘ Even as 
the captain says, all romance has long since van- 
ished, and I think the most of us are beginning to 
look the fact of our awful situation full in the face.” 

We are making but little headway on our 
course.” Bad news from the rearmost boat: the 
men are improvident ; ‘ ‘ they have eaten up all of 
the canned meats brought from the ship, and are 
now growing discontented.” Not so with the chief 
mate’s people — they are evidently under the eye of 
a man. 

Under date of May ii: ‘‘Standing still! or 
worse; we lost more last night than we made yes- 
terday.” In fact, they have lost three miles of the 
three hundred of northing they had so laboriously 
made. ‘‘The cock that was rescued and pitched 
into the boat while the ship was on fire still lives, 
and crows with the breaking of dawn, cheering us a 
good deal.” What has he been living on for a 
week? Did the starving men feed him from their 
dire poverty? ‘‘The second mate’s boat out of 
water again, showing that they overdrink their allow- 
ance. The captain spoke pretty sharply to them.” 
It is true : I have the remark in my old notebook ; 

I got it of the third mate in the hospital at Honolulu. 
But there is not room for it here, and it is too com- 
bustible, anyway. Besides, the third mate admired 
it, and what he admired he was likely to enhance. 

They were still watching hopefully for ships. The 

B 


24 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


captain was a thoughtful man, and probably did not 
disclose to them that that was substantially a waste 
of time. “ In this latitude the horizon is filled with 
little upright clouds that look very much like ships.” 
Mr. Ferguson saved three bottles of brandy from his 
private stores when he left the ship, and the liquor 
came good in these days. ” The captain serves out 
two tablespoonfuls of brandy and water — half and 
half — to our crew.” He means the watch that is 
on duty; they stood regular watches — four hours 
on and four off. The chief mate was an excellent 
officer — a self-possessed, resolute, fine, all-round 
man. The diarist makes the following note — there 
is character in it : ‘ ‘ I offered one bottle of brandy to 
the chief mate, but he declined, saying he could 
keep the after-boat quiet, and we had not enough 
for all.” 

HENRY FERGUSON’S DIARY TO DATE, GIVEN IN FULL. 

May 4, 5, 6, doldrums. May 7, 8, 9, doldrums. May 10, ii, 12, 
doldrums. Tells it all. Never saw, never felt, never heard, never 
experienced such heat, such darkness, such lightning and thunder, and 
wind and rain, in my life before. 

That boy’s diary is of the economical sort that a 
person might properly be expected to keep in such 
circumstances — and be forgiven for the economy, 
too. His brother, perishing of consumption, 
hunger, thirst, blazing heat, drowning rains, loss of 
sleep, lack of exercise, was persistently faithful and 
circumstantial with his diary from the first day to 
the last — an instance of noteworthy fidelity and 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


25 


resolution. In spite of the tossing and plunging 
boat he wrote it close and fine, in a hand as easy 
to read as print. They can’t seem to get north of 
7° N. ; they are still there the next day: 

May 12. A good rain last night, and we caught a good deal, though 
not enough to fill up our tank, pails, etc. Our object is to get out of 
these doldrums, but it seems as if we cannot do it. To-day we have had 
it very variable, and hope we are on the northern edge, though we are 
not much above 7°. This morning we all thought we had made out a 
sail; but it was one of those deceiving clouds. Rained a good deal to- 
day, making all hands wet and uncomfortable; we filled up pretty nearly 
all our water-pots, however. I hope we may have a fine night, for the 
captain certainly wants rest, and while there is any danger of squalls, or 
danger of any kind, he is always on hand. I never would have believed 
that open boats such as ours, with their loads, could live in some of the 
seas we have had. 

During the night, 1 2th- 13th, “ the cry of A ship! 
brought us to our feet.” It seemed to be the 
glimmer of a vessel’s signal-lantern rising out of the 
curve of the sea. There was a season of breathless 
hope while they stood watching, with their hands 
shading their eyes, and their hearts in their throats ; 
then the promise failed : the light was a rising star. 
It is a long time ago, — thirty-two years, — and it 
does n’t matter now, yet one is sorry for their disap- 
pointment. ‘ ‘ Thought often of those at home to- 
day, and of the disappointment they will feel next 
Sunday at not hearing from us by telegraph from 
San Francisco.” It will be many weeks yet before 
the telegram is received, and it will come as a 
thunder-clap of joy then, and with the seeming of a 
miracle, for it will raise from the grave men 


26 


My D6but as a Literary Person 


mourned as dead. “To-day our rations were re- 
duced to a quarter of a biscuit a meal, with about 
half a pint of water.” This is on the 13th of May, 
with more than a month of voyaging in front of 
them yet ! However, as they do not know that, 
“ we are all feeling pretty cheerful.” 

In the afternoon of the 14th there was a thunder- 
storm, ‘ ‘ which toward night seemed to close in around 
us on every side, making it very dark and squally.” 
“ Our situation is becoming more and more desper- 
ate,” for they were making very little northing, 
“ and every day diminishes our small stock of pro- 
visions.” They realize that the boats must soon 
separate, and each fight for its own life. Towing 
the quarter-boats is a hindering business. 

That night and next day, light and baffling winds 
and but little progress. Hard to bear, that per- 
sistent standing still, and the food wasting away. 
“ Everything in a perfect sop; and all so cramped, 
and no change of clothes.” Soon the sun comes 
out and roasts them. “Joe caught another dol- 
phin to-day; in his maw we found a flying-fish and 
two skip-jacks.” There is an event, now, which 
rouses an enthusiasm of hope : a land-bird arrives ! 
It rests on the yard for awhile, and they can look at 
it all they like, and envy it, and thank it for its 
message. As a subject of talk it is beyond price — a 
fresh, new topic for tongues tired to death of talking 
upon a single theme : Shall we ever see the land 
again; and when? Is the bird from Clipperton 


My Debut as a Literary Person 27 

Rock? They hope so; and they take heart of 
grace to believe so. As it turned out, the bird had 
no message ; it merely came to mock. 

May i6, “the cock still lives, and daily carols 
forth His praise.” It will be a rainy night, “but 
I do not care if we can fill up our water-butts.” 

On the 17th one of those majestic specters of the 
deep, a water-spout, stalked by them, and they 
trembled for their lives. Young Henry set it down 
in his scanty journal with the judicious comment 
that “ it might have been a fine sight from a ship.” 

From Captain Mitchell’s log for this day: '''Only 
half a bushel of bread-crumbs left. ’ ’ (And a month 
to wander the seas yet.) 

It rained all night and all day ; everybody uncom- 
fortable. Now came a swordfish chasing a bonito ; 
and the poor thing, seeking help and friends, took 
refuge under the rudder. The big swordfish kept 
hovering around, scaring everybody badly. The 
men’s mouths watered for him, for he would have 
made a whole banquet ; but no one dared to touch 
him, of course, for he would sink a boat promptly 
if molested. Providence protected the poor bonito 
from the cruel swordfish. This was just and right. 
Providence next befriended the shipwrecked sailors : 
they got the bonito. This was also just and right. 
But in the distribution of mercies the swordfish him- 
self got overlooked. He now went away; to muse 
over these subtleties, probably. ‘ ‘ The men in all the 
boats seem pretty well ; the feeblest of the sick ones 


28 


My D6but as a Literary Person 


(not able for a long time to stand his watch on 
board the ship) is wonderfully recovered/’ This is 
the third mate’s detested “ Portyghee ” that raised 
the family of abscesses. 

Passed a most awful night. Rained hard nearly all the time, and blew 
in squalls, accompanied by terrific thunder and lightning, from all points 
of the compass. — Henryks Log. 

Most awful night I ever witnessed. — Captain's Log. 

Latitude, May i8, ii° ii'. So they have aver- 
aged but forty miles of northing a day during the 
fortnight. Further talk of separating. “Too bad, 
but it must be done for the safety of the whole.’’ 
“ At first I never dreamed, but now hardly shut my 
eyes for a cat-nap without conjuring up something 
or other — to be accounted for by weakness, I sup- 
pose.’’ But for their disaster they think they would 
be arriving in San Francisco about this time. “I 

should have liked to send B the telegram for 

her birthday.’’ This was a young sister. 

On the 19th the captain called up the quarter- 
boats and said one would have to go off on its own 
hook. The long-boat could no longer tow both of 
them. The second mate refused to go, but the chief 
mate was ready ; in fact, he was always ready when 
there was a man’s work to the fore. He took the 
second mate’s boat; six of its crew elected to re- 
main, and two of his own crew came with him (nine 
in the boat, now, including himself). He sailed 
away, and toward sunset passed out of sight. The 
diarist was sorry to see him go. It was natural; 


My Debut as a Literary Person 29 

one could have better spared the “ Forty ghee.” 
After thirty- two years I find my prejudice against 
this “Portyghee” reviving. His very looks have 
long passed out of my memory ; but no matter, I 
am coming to hate him as religiously as ever. 
“Water will now be a scarce article, for as we get 
out of the doldrums we shall get showers only now 
and then in the trades. This life is telling severely 
on my strength. Henry holds out first-rate.” 
Henry did not start well, but under hardships he im- 
proved straight along. 

Latitude, Sunday, May 20, 12° o' 9". They 
ought to be well out of the doldrums now, but they 
are not. No breeze — the longed-for trades still 
missing. They are still anxiously watching for a 
sail, but they have only “ visions of ships that come 
to naught — the shadow without the substance.” 
The second mate catches a booby this afternoon, a 
bird which consists mainly of feathers ; ‘ ‘ but as 
they have no other meat, it will go well.” 

May 21, they strike the trades at last! The 
second mate catches three more boobies, and gives 
the long-boat one. Dinner “half a can of mince- 
meat divided up and served around, which strength- 
ened us somewhat.” They have to keep a man 
bailing all the time ; the hole knocked in the boat 
when she was launched from the burning ship was 
never efficiently mended. “ Heading about north- 
west now.” They hope they have easting enough 
to make some of those indefinite isles. Failing that, 


30 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


they think they will be in a better position to be 
picked up. It was an infinitely slender chance, but 
the captain probably refrained from mentioning 
that. 

The next day is to be an eventful one. 

May 22. Last night wind headed us off, so that part of the time we 
had to steer east-southeast and then west-northwest, and so on. This 
morning we were all startled by a cry of “ Sail ho Sure enough we 
could see it ! And for a time we cut adrift from the second mate’s boat, 
and steered so as to attract its attention. This was about half-past five 
A. M. After sailing in a state of high excitement for almost twenty 
minutes we made it out to be the chief mate’s boat. Of course we were 
glad to see them and have them report all well; but still it was a bitter 
disappointment to us all. Now that we are in the trades it seems im- 
possible to make northing enough to strike the isles. We have deter- 
mined to do the best we can, and get in the route of vessels. Such 
being the determination, it became necessary to cast off the other boat, 
which, after a good deal of unpleasantness, was done, we again dividing 
water and stores, and taking Cox into our boat. This makes our num- 
ber fifteen. The second mate’s crew wanted to all get in with us and 
cast the other boat adrift. It was a very painful separation. 

So those isles that they have struggled for so long 
and so hopefully have to be given up. What with 
lying birds that come to mock, and isles that are 
but a dream, and “visions of ships that come to 
naught,” it is a pathetic time they are having, with 
much heartbreak in it. It was odd that the vanished 
boat, three days lost to sight in that vast solitude, 
should appear again. But it brought Cox — we 
can’t be certain why. But if it had n’t, the diarist 
would never have seen the land again. 

Our chances as we go west increase in regard to being picked up, but 
each day our scanty fare is so much reduced. Without the fish, turtle. 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


31 


and birds sent us, I do not know h6w we should have got along. The 
other day I offered to read prayers morning and evening for the captain, 
and last night commenced. The men, although of various nationalities 
and religions, are very attentive, and always uncovered. May God grant 
my weak endeavor its issue. 

Latitude, May 24, 14° 18' N. Five oysters apiece 
for dinner and three spoonfuls of juice, a gill of 
water, and a piece of bisQuit the size of a silver dol- 
lar. “We are plainly getting weaker — God have 
mercy upon us all ! “ That night heavy seas break 
over the weather side and make everybody wet and 
uncomfortable, besides requiring constant bailing. 
Next day “ nothing particular happened.” Perhaps 
some of us would have regarded it differently. 
“ Passed a spar, but not near enough to see what it 
was.” They saw some whales blow; there were fly- 
ing-fish skimming the seas, but none came aboard. 
Misty weather, with fine rain, very penetrating. 

Latitude, May 26, 1 5° 50'. They caught a flying- 
fish and a booby, but had to eat them raw. ‘ ‘ The 
men grow weaker, and, I think, despondent; they 
say very little, though.” And so, to all the other 
imaginable and unimaginable horrors, silence is 
added — the muteness and brooding of coming 
despair. “It seems our best chance to get in the 
track of ships, with the hope that some one will run 
near enough to our speck to see it.” He hopes 
the other boats stood west and have been picked up. 
(They will never be heard of again in this world.) 

Sunday, May 27. Latitude 16° o' 5"; longitude, by chronometer, 
117° 22' . Our fourth Sunday I When we left the ship we reckoned on 


32 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


having about ten days’ supplies, and now we hope to be able, by rigid 
economy, to make them last another week if possible.* Last night the 
sea was comparatively quiet, but the wind headed us off to about west- 
northwest, which has been about our course all day to-day. Another 
flying-fish came aboard last night, and one more to-day — both small 
ones. No birds. A booby is a great catch, and a good large one 
makes a small dinner for the fifteen of us — that is, of course, as dinners 
go in the Hornefs long-boat. Tried this morning to read the full ser- 
vice to myself, with the communion, but found it too much; am too 
weak, and get sleepy, and cannot give strict attention; so I put off half 
till this afternoon. I trust God will hear the prayers gone up for us at 
home to-day, and graciously answer them by sending us succor and help 
in this our season of deep distress. 

The next day was “ a good day for seeing a 
ship.” But none was seen. The diarist ‘‘ still feels 
pretty well,” though very weak; his brother Henry 
‘ ‘ bears up and keeps his strength the best of any on 
board.” ‘‘I do not feel despondent at all, for I 
fully trust that the Almighty will hear our and the 
home prayers, and He who suffers not a sparrow to 
fall sees and cares for us. His creatures.” 

Considering the situation and circumstances, the 
record for next day, May 29, is one which has a 
surprise in it for those dull people who think that 
nothing but medicines and doctors can cure the sick. 
A little starvation can really do more for the average 
sick man than can the best medicines and the best 
doctors. I do not mean a restricted diet; I mean 
total abstention from food for one or two days. I 
speak from experience ; starvation has been my cold 
and fever 'doctor for fifteen years, and has laccom' 


* There .are nineteen days of voyaging ahead yet. — M. T, 


My Debut as a Literary Person 33 

plished a cure in all instances. The third mate told 
me in Honolulu that the “ Portyghee ” had lain in 
his hammock for months, raising his family of 
abscesses and feeding like a cannibal. We have 
seen that in spite of dreadful weather, deprivation 
of sleep, scorching, drenching, and all manner of 
miseries, thirteen days of starvation “wonderfully 
recovered” him. There were four sailors down 
sick when the ship was burned. Twenty-five days 
of pitiless starvation have followed, and now we 
have this curious record : ** A/l the men are hearty 

a 7 id strong ; even the ones that were down sick are 
welly except poor Peter.” When I wrote an article 
some months ago urging temporary abstention from 
food as a remedy for an inactive appetite and for 
disease, I was accused of jesting, but I was in 
earnest. ‘ ‘ We are all wonderfully well and strong y 
comparatively speaking'^ On this day the starva- 
tion regimen drew its belt a couple of buckle-holes 
tighter: the bread ration was reduced from the 
usual piece of cracker the size of a silver dollar to 
the half of thaty and 07 ie meal was abolished from 
the daily three. This will weaken the men physically, 
but if there are any diseases of an ordinary sort left 
in them they will disappear. 

Two quarts bread-crumbs left, one-third of a ham, three small cans of 
oysters, and twenty gallons of water. — Captain's Lo^. 

The hopeful tone of the diaries is persistent. It 
is remarkable. Look at the map and see where the 
boat is: latitude 16° 44', longitude 119° 20'. It is 


34 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


more than two hundred miles west of the Revil- 
lagigedo Islands, so they are quite out of the ques- 
tion against the trades, rigged as this boat is. The 
nearest land available for such a boat is the American 
group, six hundred and fifty miles away^ westward; 
still, there is no note of surrender, none even of dis- 
couragement ! Yet, May 30, “we have now left: 
one can of oysters ; three pounds of raisins ; one can 
of soup ; one-third of a ham ; three pmts of biscuit- 
crumbs'' And fifteen starved men to live on it 
while they creep and crawl six hundred and fifty 
miles. “ Somehow I feel much encouraged by this 
change of course (west by north) which we have 
made to-day.” Six hundred and fifty miles on a 
hatful of provisions. Let us be thankful, even after 
thirty-two years, that they are mercifully ignorant of 
the fact that it isn’t six hundred and fifty that they 
must creep on the hatful, but twenty-two hundred ! 
Isn’t the situation romantic enough just as it stands? 
No. Providence added a startling detail: pulling an 
oar in that boat, for common seaman’s wages, was 
a banished duke — Danish. We hear no more of 
him ; just that mention, that is all, with the simple 
remark added that “ he is one of our best men ” — 
a high enough compliment for a duke or any other 
man in those manhood-testing circumstances. With 
that little glimpse of him at his oar, and that fine 
word of praise, he vanishes out of our knowledge 
for all time. For all time, unless he should chance 
upon this note and reveal himself. 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


35 


The last day of May is come. And now there is 
a disaster to report : think of it, reflect upon it, and 
try to understand how much it means, when you 
sit down with your family and pass your eye over 
your breakfast-table. Yesterday there were three 
pints of bread-crumbs ; this morning the little bag is 
found open and some of the crumbs missing, “ We 
dislike to suspect any one of such a rascally act, but 
there is no question that this grave crime has been 
committed. Two days will certainly finish the re- 
maining morsels. God grant us strength to reach 
the American group ! ’ ' The third mate told me in 
Honolulu that in these days the men remembered 
with bitterness that the “ Portyghee ” had devoured 
twenty- two days’ rations while he lay waiting to be 
transferred from the burning ship, and that now they 
cursed him and swore an oath that if it came to can- 
nibalism he should be the first to suffer for the rest. 

The captain has lost his glasses, and therefore he cannot read our 
pocket prayer-books as much as I think he would like, though he is not 
familiar with them. 

Further of the captain: “He is a good man, 
and has been most kind to us — almost fatherly. 
He says that if he had been offered the command of 
the ship sooner he should have brought his two 
daughters with him.” It makes one shudder yet to 
think how narrow an escape it was. 

The two meals (rations) a day are as follows: fourteen raisins and a 
piece of cracker the size of a cent, for tea; a gill of water, and a piece 
of ham and a piece of bread, each the size of a cent, for breakfast. — 
Captain^s Log. 


36 


My D^but as a Literary Person 


He means a cent in thickness as well as in circum- 
ference. Samuel Ferguson’s diary says the ham 
was shaved “ about as thin as it could be cut.” 

June I. Last night and to-day sea very high and cobbling, breaking 
over and making us all wet and cold. Weather squally, and there is no 
doubt that only careful management — with God’s protecting care — 
preserved us through both the night and the day; and really it is most 
marvelous how every morsel that passes our lips is blessed to us. It 
makes me think daily of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Henry 
keeps up wonderfully, which is a great consolation to me. I somehow 
have great confidence, and hope that our afflictions will soon be ended, 
though we are running rapidly across the track of both outward and 
inward bound vessels, and away from them; our chief hope is a whaler, 
man-of-war, or some Australian ship. The isles we are steering for are 
put down in Bowditch, but on my map are said to be doubtful. God 
grant they may be there ! 

Hardest day yet. — Captain^s Log. 

Doubtful ! It was worse than that. A week later 
they sailed straight over them. 

June 2. Latitude 1 8° 9'. Squally, cloudy, a heavy sea. ... I 
cannot help thinking of the cheerful and comfortable time we had 
aboard the Hornet. 

Two days’ scanty supplies left — ten rations of water apiece and a 
little morsel of bread. But the sun shines^ and God is merciful. — Cap- 
tain's Log. 

Sunday, June 3. Latitude 17° 54'. Heavy sea all night, and from 
4 A. M. very wet, the sea breaking over us in frequent sluices, and soak- 
ing everything aft, particularly. All day the sea has been very high, 
and it is a wonder that we are not swamped. Heaven grant that it 
may go down this evening! Our suspense and condition are getting 
terrible. I managed this morning to crawl, more than step, to the 
forward end of the boat, and was surprised to find that I was so weak, 
especially in the legs and knees. The sun has been out again, and I 
have dried some things, and hope for a better night. 

June 4. Latitude 17° 6', longitude 131° 30'. Shipped hardly any 
seas last night, and to-day the sea has gone down somewhat, although 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


37 


it is still too high for comfort, as we have an occasional reminder that 
water is wet. The sun has been out all day, and so we have had a 
good drying. I have been trying for the last ten or twelve days to get 
a pair of drawers dry enough to put on, and to-day at last succeeded. 
I mention this to show the state in which we have lived. If our 
chronometer is anywhere near right, we ought to see the American 
Isles to-morrow or next day. If they are not there, we have only the 
chance for a few days, of a stray ship, for we cannot eke out the 
provisions more than five or six days longer, and our strength is failing 
very fast. I was much surprised to-day to note how my legs have wasted 
away above my knees ; they are hardly thicker than my upper arm used 
to be. Still, I trust in God’s infinite mercy, and feel sure he will do 
what is best for us. To survive, as we have done, thirty-two days in an 
open boat, with only about ten days’ fair provisions for thirty-one men 
in the first place, and these divided twice subsequently, is more than 
mere unassisted human art and strength could have accomplished and 
endured. 

Bread and raisins all gone. — Captain's Log, 

Men growing dreadfully discontented, and awful grumbling and un- 
pleasant talk is arising. God save us from all strife of men; and if we 
must die now, take us himself, and not embitter our bitter death still 
more. — Henry's Log. 

June 5. Quiet night and pretty comfortable day, though our sail and 
block show signs of failing, and need taking down — which latter is 
something of a job, as it requires the climbing of the mast. We also 
had news from forward, there being discontent and some threatening 
complaints of unfair allowances, etc., all as unreasonable as foolish; still, 
these things bid us be on our guard. I am getting miserably weak, but 
try to keep up the best I can. If we cannot find those isles we can only 
try to make northwest and get in the track of Sandwich Island bound 
vessels, living as best we can in the meantime. To-day we changed to 
one meal, and that at about noon, with a small ration of water at 8 or 9 
A. M., another at 12 M., and a third at 5 or 6 P. m. 

Nothing left but a little piece of ham and a gill of water, all around. 
— Captain's Log. 

They are down to one meal a day now, — such as 
it is, — and fifteen hundred miles to crawl yet ! And 
now the horrors deepen, and though they escaped 
3 


38 


My Dt^but as a Literary Person 


actual mutiny, the attitude of the men became 
alarming. Now we seem to see why that curious 
accident happened, so long ago: I mean Cox’s re- 
turn, after he had been far away and out of sight 
several days in the chief mate’s boat. If he had 
not come back the captain and the two young pas- 
sengers would have been slain by these sailors, who 
were becoming crazed through their sufferings. 

NOTE SECRETLY PASSED BY HENRY TO HIS BROTHER. 

Cox told me last night that there is getting to be a good deal of 
ugly talk among the men against the captain and us aft. They say that 
the captain is the cause of all; that he did not try to save the ship at 
all, nor to get provisions, and even would not let the men put in some 
they had; and that partiality is shown us in apportioning our rations aft. 
* * * asked Cox the other day if he would starve first or eat human 
flesh. Cox answered he would starve. * * * then told him he would be 
only killing himself. If we do not find these islands we would do well 
to prepare for anything. * * * is the loudest of all. 

REPLY. 

We can depend on * * ♦, I think, and * * *, and Cox, can we not ? 

SECOND NOTE. 

I guess so, and very likely on * * *; but there is no telling. * * * 
and Cox are certain. There is nothing definite said or hinted as yet, as I 
understand Cox; but starving men are the same as maniacs. It would be 
well to keep a watch on your pistol, so as to have it and the cartridges 
safe from theft. 

Henry's Logy June 5. Dreadful forebodings. God spare us from all 
such horrors 1 Some of the men getting to talk a good deal. Nothing 
to write down. Heart very sad. 

Henry's Logy June 6. Passed some seaweed, and something that 
looked like the trunk of an old tree, but no birds; beginning to be afraid 
islands not there. To-day it was said to the captain, in the hearing of 
all, that some of the men would not shrink, when a man was dead, from 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


39 


using the flesh, though they would not kill. Horrible ! God give us all 
full use of our reason, and spare us from such things ! “ From plague, 

pestilence, and famine, from battle and murder, and from sudden death, 
good Lord, deliver us ! ” 

June 6. Latitude 16° 30', longitude (chron.) 134°. Dry night and 
wind steady enough to require no change in sail; but this A. m. an at- 
tempt to lower it proved abortive. First the third mate tried and got up 
to the block, and fastened a temporary arrangement to reeve the hal- 
yards through, but had to come down, weak and almost fainting, before 
finishing; then Joe tried, and after twice ascending, fixed it and brought 
down the block; but it was very exhausting work, and afterward he was 
good for nothing all day. The clue-iron which we are trying to make 
serve for the broken block works, however, very indifferently, and will, 
I am afraid, soon cut the rope. It is very necessary to get everything 
connected with the sail in good, easy running order before we get too 
weak to do anything with it. 

Only three meals left. — Captain^s Log. 

June 7. Latitude 16° 35' N., longitude 136° 30' W. Night wet 
and uncomfortable. To-day shows us pretty conclusively that the 
American Isles are not there, though we have had some signs that 
looked like them. At noon we decided to abandon looking any farther 
for them, and to-night haul a little more northerly, so as to get in the 
way of Sandwich Island vessels, which fortunately come down pretty well 
this way — say to latitude 1 9° to 20° — to get the benefit of the trade 
winds. Of course all the westing we have made is gain, and I hope the 
chronometer is wrong in our favor, for I do not see how any such delicate 
instrument can keep good time with the constant jarring and thumping 
we get from the sea. With the strong trade we have, I hope that a 
week from Sunday will put us in sight of the Sandwich Islands, if we 
are not safe by that time by being picked up. 

It is twelve hundred miles to the Sandwich 
Islands; the provisions are virtually exhausted, but 
not the perishing diarist’s pluck. 

June 8. My cough troubled me a good deal last night, and therefore 
I got hardly any sleep at all. Still, I make out pretty well, and should 
not complain. Yesterday the third mate mended the block, and this 
P. M. the sail, after some difficulty, was got down, and Harry got to the 
C 


40 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


top of the mast and rove the halyards through after some hardship, so 
that it now works easy and well. This getting up the mast is no easy 
matter at any time with the sea we have, and is very exhausting in our 
present state. We could only reward Harry by an extra ration of 
water. We have made good time and course to-day. Heading her up, 
however, makes the boat ship seas and keeps us all wet; however, it 
cannot be helped. Writing is a rather precarious thing these times. Our 
meal to-day for the fifteen consists of half a can of “ soup and boullie ” ; 
the other half is reserved for to-morrow. Henry still keeps up grandly, 
and is a great favorite. God grant he may be spared ! 

A better feeling prevails among the men. — Captain* s Log. 

June 9. Latitude 17° 53'. Finished to-day, I may say, our whole 
stock of provisions.* We have only left a lower end of a ham-bone, 
with some of the outer rind and skin on. In regard to the water, how- 
ever, I think we have got ten days’ supply at our present rate of allow- 
ance. This, with what nourishment we can get from boot-legs and such 
chewable matter, we hope will enable us to weather it out till we get to 
the Sandwich Islands, or, sailing in the meantime in the track of vessels 
thither bound, be picked up. My hope is in the latter, for in all human 
probability I cannot stand the other. Still, we have been marvelously 
protected, and God, I hope, will preserve us all in his own good time 
and way. The men are getting weaker, but are still quiet and orderly. 

Sunday, June 10. Latitude 18° 40', longitude 142° 34'. A pretty 
good night last night, with some wettings, and again another beautiful 
Sunday. I cannot but think how we should all enjoy it at home, and 
what a contrast is here ! How terrible their suspense must begin to be ! 
God grant that it may be relieved before very long, and he certainly 
seems to be with us in everything we do, and has preserved this boat 
miraculously; for since we left the ship we have sailed considerably over 
three thousand miles, which, taking into consideration our meager stock 
of provisions, is almost unprecedented. As yet I do not feel the stint 
of food so much as I do that of water. Even Henry, who is naturally 
a good water-drinker, can save half of his allowance from time to time, 
when I cannot. My diseased throat may have something to do with 
that, however. 

Nothing is now left which by any flattery can be 
called food. But they must manage somehow for 


* Six days to sail yet, nevertheless. — M. T. 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


41 


five days more, for at noon they have still eight 
hundred miles to go. It is a race for life now. 

This is no time for comments or other interrup- 
tions from me — every moment is valuable. I will 
take up the boy brother’s diary at this point, and 
clear the seas before it and let it fly. 

HENRY FERGUSON’S LOG. 

Sunday, June lo. Our ham-bone has given us a taste of food to-day, 
and we have got left a little meat and the remainder of the bone for to- 
morrow. Certainly never was there such a sweet knuckle-bone, or one 

that was so thoroughly appreciated I do not know that I feel 

any worse than I did last Sunday, notwithstanding the reduction of diet; 
and I trust that we may all have strength given us to sustain the suffer- 
ings and hardships of the coming week. We estimate that we are within 
seven hundred miles of the Sandwich Islands, and that our average, 
daily, is somewhat over a hundred miles, so that our hopes have some 
foundation in reason. Heaven send we may all live to see land ! 

June 1 1 . Ate the meat and rind of our ham-bone, and have the bone 
and the greasy cloth from around the ham left to eat to-morrow. God 
send us birds or fish, and let us not perish of hunger, or be brought to 
the dreadful alternative of feeding on human flesh ! As I feel now, I do 
not think anything could persuade me; but you cannot tell what you 
will do when you are reduced by hunger and your mind wandering. I 
hope and pray we can make out to reach the islands before we get to 
this strait; but we have one or two desperate men aboard, though they 
are quiet enough now. It is my firm trust and belief that we are going 
to be saved. 

All food gone. — Captain's Log.* 

June 12 . Stiff breeze, and we are fairly flying — dead ahead of it — 
and toward the islands. Good hope, but the prospects of hunger are 
awful. Ate ham-bone to-day. It is the captain’s birthday; he is fifty- 
four years old. 

* It was at this time discovered that the crazed sailors had gotten the 
delusion that the captain had a million dollars in gold concealed aft, 
and they were conspiring to kill him and the two passengers and seize 
it.— M. T. 


42 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


June 13. The ham-rags are not quite all gone yet, and the boot- 
legs, we find, are very palatable after we get the salt out of them. A 
little smoke, I think, does some little good; but I don’t know. 

June 14. Hunger does not pain us much, but we are dreadfully 
weak. Our water is getting frightfully low. God grant we may see 
land soon! Nothing to eat, but feel better than I did yesterday. 
Toward evening saw a magnificent rainbow — the first we had seen. 
Captain said, “Cheer up, boys; it’s a prophecy — it's the bow of 
promise !" 

June 15. God be forever praised for his infinite mercy! LAND IN 
SIGHT ! Rapidly neared it and soon were sure of it. . . . Two 

noble Kanakas swam out and took the boat ashore. We were joyfully 
received by two white men — Mr. Jones and his steward Charley — and 
a crowd of native men, women, and children. They treated us splen- 
didly — aided us, and carried us up the bank, and brought us water, 
poi, bananas, and green cocoanuts; but the white men took care of us 
and prevented those who would have eaten too much from doing so. 
Everybody overjoyed to see us, and all sympathy expressed in faces, 
deeds, and words. We were then helped up to the house; and help 
we needed. Mr. Jones and Charley are the only white men here. 
Treated us splendidly. Gave us first about a teaspoonful of spirits in 
water, and then to each a cup of warm tea, with a little bread. Takes 
every care of us. Gave us later another cup of tea, and bread the same, 
and then let us go to rest. It is the happiest day of my life. . . . God 
in his mercy has heard our prayer. . . . Everybody is so kind. Words 
cannot tell. 

June 16. Mr. Jones gave us a delightful bed, and we surely had a 
good night’s rest; but not sleep — we were too happy to sleep; would 
keep the reality and not let it turn to a delusion — dreaded that we 
might wake up and find ourselves in the boat again. 

It is an amazing adventure. There is nothing of 
its soft in history that surpasses it in impossibilities 
made possible. In one extraordinary detail — the 
survival of every person in the boat — it probably 
stands alone in the history of adventures of its kind. 
Usually merely a part of a boat’s company survive 


My D^but as a Literary Person 


43 


— officers, mainly, and other educated and tenderly 
reared men, unused to hardship and heavy labor; 
the untrained, roughly reared hard workers suc- 
cumb. But in this case even the rudest and rough- 
est stood the privations and miseries of the voyage 
almost as well as did the college-bred young brothers 
and the captain. I mean, physically. The minds 
of most of the sailors broke down in the fourth week 
and went to temporary ruin, but physically the en- 
durance exhibited was astonishing. Those men did 
not survive by any merit of their own, of course, 
but by merit of the character and intelligence of the 
captain; they lived by the mastery of his spirit. 
Without him they would have been children -without 
a nurse ; they would have exhausted their provisions 
in a week, and their pluck would not have lasted 
even as long as the provisions. 

The boat came near to being wrecked at the last. 
As it approached the shore the sail was let go, and 
came down with a run ; then the captain saw that he 
was drifting swiftly toward an ugly reef, and an 
effort was made to hoist the sail again : but it could 
not be done; the men’s strength was wholly ex- 
hausted; they could not even pull an oar. They 
were helpless, and death imminent. It was then 
that they were discovered by the two Kanakas who 
achieved the rescue. They swam out and manned 
the boat and piloted her through a narrow and 
hardly noticeable break in the reef — the only break 
in it in a stretch of thirty-five miles ! The spot 


44 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


where the landing was made was the only one in 
that stretch where footing could have been found on 
the shore; everywhere else precipices came sheer 
down into forty fathoms of water. Also, in all that 
stretch this was the only spot where anybody lived. 

Within ten days after the landing all the men but 
one were up and creeping about. Properly, they 
ought to have killed themselves with the “ food ” of 
the last few days — some of them, at any rate — 
men who had freighted their stomachs with strips of 
leather from old boots and with chips from the 
butter-cask ; a freightage which they did not get rid 
of by digestion, but by other means. The captain 
and the two passengers did not eat strips and chips, 
as the sailors did, but scraped the boot-leather and 
the wood, and made a pulp of the scrapings by 
moistening them with water. The third mate told 
me that the boots were old and full of holes ; then 
added thoughtfully, “but the holes digested the 
best.” Speaking of digestion, here is a remarkable 
thing, and worth noting: during this strange voyage, 
and for a while afterward on shore, the bowels of 
some of the men virtually ceased from their func- 
tions ; in some cases there was no action for twenty 
and thirty days, and in one case for forty-four ! 
Sleeping also came to be rare. Yet the men did 
very well without it. During many days the captain 
did not sleep at all — twenty-one, I think, on one 
stretch. 

When the landing was made, all the men were 


My Ddbut as a Literary Person 


45 


successfully protected from overeating except the 

Portyghee ” ; he escaped the watch and ate an in- 
credible number of bananas: a hundred and fifty- 
two, the third mate said, but this was undoubtedly 
an exaggeration; I think it was a hundred and 
fifty-one. He was already nearly full of leather; 
it was hanging out of his ears. (I do not state this 
on the third mate’s authority, for we have seen what 
sort of person he was; I state it on my own.) 
The “Portyghee” ought to have died, of course, 
and even now it seems a pity that he did n’t; but he 
got well, and as early as any of them ; and all full of 
leather, too, the way he was, and butter-timber and 
handkerchiefs and bananas. Some of the men did 
eat handkerchiefs in those last days, also socks; 
and he was one of them. 

It is to the credit of the men that they did not kill 
the rooster that crowed so gallantly mornings. He 
lived eighteen days, and then stood up and 
stretched his neck and made a brave, weak effort 
to do his duty once more, and died in the act. It 
is a picturesque detail; and so is that rainbow, too, 
— the only one seen in the forty- three days, — rais- 
ing its triumphal arch in the skies for the sturdy 
fighters to sail under to victory and rescue. 

With ten days’ provisions Captain Josiah Mitchell 
performed this memorable voyage of forty-three 
days and eight hours in an open boat, sailing four 
thousand miles in reality and thirty-three hundred 
and sixty by direct courses, and brought every man 


46 


My Debut as a Literary Person 


safe to land. A bright, simple-hearted, unassuming, 
plucky, and most companionable man. I walked 
the deck with him twenty-eight days, — when I was 
not copying diaries, — and I remember him with 
reverent honor. If he is alive he is eighty-six years 
old now. 

If I remember rightly, Samuel Ferguson died 
soon after we reached San Francisco. I do not 
think he lived to see his home again; his disease 
had been seriously aggravated by his hardships. 

For a time it was hoped that the two quarter-boats 
would presently be heard of, but this hope suffered 
disappointment. They went down with all on board, 
no doubt, not even sparing that knightly chief 
mate. 

The authors of the diaries allowed me to copy 
them exactly as they were written, and the extracts 
that I have given are without any smoothing over 
or revision. These diaries are finely modest and 
unaffected, and with unconscious and unintentional 
art they rise toward the climax with graduated and 
gathering force and swing and dramatic intensity; 
they sweep you along with a cumulative rush, and 
when the cry rings out at last, ‘ ‘ Land in sight ! ’ ’ 
your heart is in your mouth, and for a moment you 
think it is you that have been saved. The last two 
paragraphs are not improvable by anybody’s art; 
they are literary gold; and their very pauses and 
uncompleted sentences have in them an eloquence 
not reachable by any words. 


My Ddbut as a Literary Person 


47 


The interest of this story is unquenchable ; it is 
of the sort that time cannot decay. I have not 
looked at the diaries for thirty- two years, but I find 
that they have lost nothing in that time. Lost? 
They have gained ; for by some subtle law all tragic 
human experiences gain in pathos by the perspec- 
tive of time. We realize this when in Naples we 
stand musing over the poor Pompeian mother, lost in 
the historic storm of volcanic ashes eighteen centu- 
ries ago, who lies with her child gripped close to her 
breast, trying to save it, and whose despair and grief 
have been preserved for us by the fiery envelope 
which took her life but eternalized her form and 
features. She moves us, she haunts us, she stays 
in our thoughts for many days, we do not know 
why, for she is nothing to us, she has been nothing 
to any one for eighteen centuries; whereas of the 
like case to-day we should say, “Poor thing! it is 
pitiful,” and forget it in an hour. 


THE ESQUIMAU MAIDEN^S ROMANCE 


ES, I will tell you anything about my life that 



1 you would like to know, Mr. Twain,” she 
said, in her soft voice, and letting her honest eyes 
rest placidly upon my face, ” for it is kind and good 
of you to like me and care to know about me.” 

She had been absently scraping blubber-grease 
from her cheeks with a small bone-knife and trans- 
ferring it to her fur sleeve, while she watched the 
Aurora Borealis swing its flaming streamers out of 
the sky and wash the lonely snow-plain and the 
templed icebergs with the rich hues of the prism, a 
spectacle of almost intolerable splendor and beauty ; 
but now she shook off her reverie and prepared to 
give me the humble little history I had asked for. 

She settled herself comfortably on the block of ice 
which we were using as a sofa, and I made ready to 
listen. 

She was a beautiful creature. I speak from the 
Esquimau point of view. Others would have 
thought her a trifle over-plump. She was just twenty 
years old, and was held to be by far the most be- 
witching girl in her tribe. Even now, in the open 


( 48 ) 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


49 


air, with her cumbersome and shapeless fur coat and 
trousers and boots and vast hood, the beauty of her 
face at least was apparent ; but her figure had to be 
taken on trust. Among all the guests who came 
and went, I had seen no girl at her father’s hospi- 
table trough who could be called her equal. Yet she 
was not spoiled. She was sweet and natural and 
sincere, and if she was aware that she was a belle, 
there was nothing about her ways to show that she 
possessed that knowledge. 

She had been my daily comrade for a week now, 
and the better I knew her the better I liked her. 
She had been tenderly and carefully brought up, 
in an atmosphere of singularly rare refinement for 
the polar regions, for her father was the most im- 
portant man of his tribe and ranked at the top of 
Esquimau cultivation. I made long dog-sledge trips 
across the mighty ice floes with Lasca, — that was 
her name, — and found her company always pleasant 
and her conversation agreeable. I went fishing with 
her, but not in her perilous boat: I merely followed 
along on the ice and watched her strike her game 
with her fatally accurate spear. We went sealing 
together ; several times I stood by while she and the 
family dug blubber from a stranded whale, and once 
I went part of the way when she was hunting a bear, 
but turned back before the finish, because at bottom 
I am afraid of bears. 

However, she was ready to begin her story now, 
and this is what she said : 


50 


The Esquimau Maiden's Romance 


‘ ‘ Our tribe had always been used to wander about 
from place to place over the frozen seas, like the 
other tribes, but my father got tired of that two 
years ago, and built this great mansion of frozen 
snow-blocks, — look at it; it is seven feet high and 
three or four times as long as any of the others, — 
and here we have stayed ever since. He was very 
proud of his house, and that was reasonable ; for if 
you have examined it with care you must have 
noticed how much finer and completer it is than 
houses usually are. But if you have not, you must, 
for you will find it has luxurious appointments that 
are quite beyond the common. For instance, in 
that end of it which you have called the ‘ parlor,’ 
the raised platform for the accommodation of guests 
and the family at meals is the largest you have ever 
seen in any house — is it not so? ” 

“Yes, you are quite right, Lasca; it is the 
largest; we have nothing resembling it in even the 
finest houses in the United States.” This admis- 
sion made her eyes sparkle with pride and pleasure. 
I noted that, and took my cue. 

“ I thought it must have surprised you,” she said. 
‘ ‘ And another thing : it is bedded far deeper in furs 
than is usual; all kinds of furs — seal, sea-otter, 
silver-gray fox, bear, marten, sable — every kind of 
fur in profusion; and the same with the ice-block 
sleeping-benches along the walls, which you call 
‘beds.’ Are your platforms and sleeping-benches 
better provided at home? ” 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 51 

“Indeed, they are not, Lasca — they do not 
begin to be.’’ That pleased her again. All she was 
thinking of was the number of furs her aesthetic 
father took the trouble to keep on hand, not their 
value. I could have told her that those masses of 
rich furs constituted wealth, — or would in my coun- 
try, — but she would not have understood that; those 
were not the kind of things that ranked as riches 
with her people. I could have told her that the 
clothes she had on, or the every-day clothes of the 
commonest person about her, were worth twelve or 
fifteen hundred dollars, and that I was not acquainted 
with anybody at home who wore twelve-hundred-dol- 
lar toilets to go fishing in ; but she would not have 
understood it, so I said nothing. She resumed : 

“And then the slop-tubs. We have two in the 
parlor, and two in the rest of the house. It is very 
seldom that one has two in the parlor. Have you 
two in the parlor at home ? ’ ’ 

The memory of those tubs made me gasp, but I 
recovered myself before she noticed, and said with 
effusion : 

‘ ‘ Why, Lasca, it is a shame of me to expose my 
country, and you must not let it go further, for I 
am speaking to you in confidence ; but I give you 
my word of honor that not even the richest man in 
the city of New York has two slop-tubs in his draw- 
ing-room.’’ 

She clapped her fur-clad hands in innocent de- 
light, and exclaimed : 


52 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


“ Oh, but you cannot mean it, you cannot mean 
it! ” 

“Indeed, I am in earnest, dear. There is Van- 
derbilt. Vanderbilt is almost the richest man in the 
whole world. Now, if I were on my dying bed, I 
could say to you that not even he has two in his 
drawing-room. Why, he hasn’t even one — I wish 
I may die in my tracks if it isn’t true.’’ 

Her lovely eyes stood wide with amazement, and 
she said, slowly, and with a sort of awe in her voice: 

‘ ‘ How strange — how incredible — one is not able 
to realize it. Is he penurious?’’ 

“No — it isn’t that. It isn’t the expense he 
minds, but — er — well, you know, it would look 
like showing off. Yes, that is it, that is the idea; 
he is a plain man in his way, and shrinks from 
display.’’ 

“Why, that humility is right enough’’ said 
La^a, “ if one does not carry it too far — but what 
does the place look like? ’’ 

“ Well, necessarily it looks pretty barren and un- 
finished, but — ’’ 

‘ ‘ I should think so ! I never heard anything like 
it. Is it a fine house — that is, otherwise? ’’ 

“ Pretty fine, yes. It is very well thought of.’’ 

The girl was silent awhile, and sat dreamily gnaw- 
ing a candle-end, apparently trying to think the thing 
out. At last she gave her head a little toss and 
spoke out her opinion with decision : 

“Well, to my mind there’s a breed of humility 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


53 


which is itself a species of showing-off, when you 
get down to the marrow of it ; and when a man is 
able to afford two slop-tubs in his parlor, and don’t 
do it, it may be that he is truly humble-minded, but 
it’s a hundred times more likely that he is just trying 
to strike the public eye. In my judgment, your 
Mr. Vanderbilt knows what he is about.” 

I tried to modify this verdict, feeling that a double 
slop-tub standard was not a fair one to try every- 
body by, although a sound enough one in its own 
habitat; but the girl’s head was set, and she was not 
to be persuaded. Presently she said: 

‘‘Do the rich people, with you, have as good 
sleeping-benches as ours, and made out of as nice 
broad ice-blocks ? ’ ’ 

‘‘Well, they are pretty good — good enough — 
but they are not made of ice-blocks.” 

‘‘ I want to know ! Why aren’t they made of ice- 
blocks?” 

I explained the difficulties in the way, and the ex- 
pensiveness of ice in a country where you have to 
keep a sharp eye on your ice man or your ice bill 
will weigh more than your ice. Then she cried out: 

‘‘ Dear me, do you buy your ice? ” 

‘‘ We most surely do, dear.” 

She burst into a gale of guileless laughter, and said : 

‘‘Oh, I never heard of anything so silly! My, 
there’s plenty of it — it isn’t worth anything. Why, 
there is a hundred miles of it in sight, right now. I 
wouldn’t give a fish bladder for the whole of it.” 

4 


54 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


“ Well, it’s because you don’t know how to value 
it, you little provincial muggins. If you had it in 
New York in midsummer, you could buy all the 
whales in the market with it.” 

She looked at me doubtfully, and said : 

‘ ‘ Are you speaking true ? ’ ’ 

” Absolutely. I take my oath to it.” 

This made her thoughtful. Presently she said, 
with a little sigh : 

” I wish / could live there.” 

I had merely meant to furnish her a standard of 
values which she could understand; but my pur- 
pose had miscarried. I had only given her the im- 
pression that whales were cheap and plenty in New 
York, and set her mouth to watering for them. It 
seemed best to try to mitigate the evil which I had 
done, so I said : 

“But you wouldn’t care for whale meat if you 
lived there. Nobody does.” 

“ What! ” 

“ Indeed they don’t.” 

“ Why don’t they? ” 

“ Wel-1-1, I hardly know. It’s prejudice, I think. 
Yes, that is it — just prejudice. I reckon some- 
body that hadn’t anything better to do started a pre- 
judice against it, some time or other, and once you 
get a caprice like that fairly going, you know, it will 
last no end of time.” 

“That is true — perfectly true,” said the girl, 
reflectively. “ Like our prejudice against soap, here 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 55 

— our tribes had a prejudice against soap at first, 
you know.” 

I glanced at her to see if she was in earnest. Evi- 
dently she was. I hesitated, then said, cautiously: 

” But pardon me. They had a prejudice against 
soap ? Had ? ” — with falling inflection. 

” Yes — but that was only at first; nobody would 
eat it.” 

‘‘Oh, — I understand. I didn’t get your idea 
before.” 

She resumed : 

‘ ‘ It was just a prejudice. The first time soap came 
here from the foreigners, nobody liked it; but as 
soon as it got to be fashionable, everybody liked it, 
and now everybody has it that can afford it. Are 
you fond of it? ” 

‘‘ Yes, indeed ! I should die if I couldn’t have it 

— especially here. Do you like it? ” 

‘‘ I just adore it ! Do you like candles? ” 

‘‘I regard them as an absolute necessity. Are 
you fond of them ? ’ ’ 

Her eyes fairly danced, and she exclaimed : 

‘‘Oh! Don’t mention it! Candles! — and 
soap ! — ” 

‘‘ And fish-interiors ! — ” 

‘ ‘ And train-oil ! — ” 

‘‘ And slush ! — ” 

‘ ‘ And whale-blubber ! — ” 

‘‘And carrion! and sour-krout! and beeswax! 
and tar ! and turpentine ! and molasses ! and — ’ ’ 

D 


56 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


“Don’t — oh, don’t — I shall expire with 

ecstasy ! — ’ ’ 

“ And then serve it all up in a slush-bucket, and 
invite the neighbors and sail in ! ’ ’ 

But this vision of an ideal feast was too much for 
her, and she swooned away, poor thing. I rubbed 
snow in her face and brought her to, and after a 
while got her excitement cooled down. By and by 
she drifted into her story again : 

“So we began to live here, in the fine house. 
But I was not happy. The reason was this : I was 
born for love ; for me there could be no true happi- 
ness without it. I wanted to be loved for myself 
alone. I wanted an idol, and I wanted to be my 
idol’s idol; nothing less than mutual idolatry would 
satisfy my fervent nature. I had suitors in plenty 
— in over-plenty, indeed — but in each and every 
case they had a fatal defect ; sooner or later I dis- 
covered that defect — not one of them failed to be- 
tray it — it was not me they wanted, but my wealth. ’ ’ 

“Your wealth?’’ 

“Yes; for my father is much the richest man in 
this tribe — or in any tribe in these regions.’’ 

I wondered what her father’s wealth consisted of. 
It couldn’t be the house — anybody could build 
its mate. It couldn’t be the furs — they were not 
valued. It couldn’t be the sledge, the dogs, the 
harpoons, the boat, the bone fish-hooks and needles, 
and such things — no, these were not wealth. Then 
what could it be that made this man so rich and 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 57 

brought this swarm of sordid suitors to his house? 
It seemed to me, finally, that the best way to find 
out would be to ask. So I did it. The girl was so 
manifestly gratified by the question that I saw she 
had been aching to have me ask it. She was suffer- 
ing fully as much to tell as I was to know. She 
snuggled confidentially up to me and said : 

“ Guess how much he is worth — you never can ! ” 

I pretended to consider the matter deeply, she 
watching my anxious and laboring countenance 
with a devouring and delighted interest; and when, 
at last, I gave it up and begged her to appease my 
longing by telling me herself how much this polar 
Vanderbilt was worth, she put her mouth close to 
my ear and whispered, impressively: 

“ Twenty -two fish-hooks — not bone, but foreign 
— made out of real iro7t ! ’ ’ 

Then she sprang back dramatically, to observe the 
effect. I did my level best not to disappoint her. 

I turned pale and murmured : 

‘ ‘ Great Scott ! ’ ’ 

“ It’s as true as you live, Mr. Twain ! ” 

‘ ‘ Lasca, you are deceiving me — you cannot mean 
it.’’ 

She was frightened and troubled. She exclaimed : 

“Mr. Twain, every word of it is true — every 
word. You believe me — you do believe me, now 
don't you? Say you believe me — do say you be- 
lieve me ! ’ ’ 

“I — well, yes, I do — I am trying to. But it 


58 


The Esquimau Maiden's Romance 


was all so sudden. So sudden and prostrating. 
You shouldn’t do such a thing in that sudden way. 
It—” 

” Oh, I’m sorry! If I had only thought — ” 
‘‘Well, it’s all right, and I don’t blame you any 
more, for you are young and thoughtless, and of 
course you couldn’t foresee what an effect — ” 

‘‘But oh, dear, I ought certainly to have known 
better. Why — ’ ’ 

‘‘You see, Lasca, if you had said five or six 
hooks, to start with, and then gradually — ” 

‘‘Oh, I see, I see — then gradually added one, 
and then two, and then — ah, why couldn’t I have 
thought of that ! ’ ’ 

‘‘Never mind, child, it’s all right — I am better 
now — I shall be over it in a little while. But — to 
spring the whole twenty-two on a person unprepared 
and not very strong anyway — ’ ’ 

‘‘ Oh, it was a crime I But you forgive me — say 
you forgive me. Do I ” 

After harvesting a good deal of very pleasant 
coaxing and petting and persuading, I forgave her 
and she was happy again, and by and by she got 
under way with her narrative once more. I pres- 
ently discovered that the family treasury contained 
still another feature — a jewel of some sort, appar- 
ently — and that she was trying to get around speak- 
ing squarely about it, lest I get paralyzed again. 
But I wanted to know about that thing, too, and 
urged her to tell me what it was. She was afraid. 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 59 

But I insisted, and said I would brace myself this 
time and be prepared, then the shock would not hurt 
me. She was full of misgivings, but the temptation 
to reveal that marvel to me and enjoy my astonish- 
ment and admiration was too strong for her, and she 
confessed that she had it on her person, and said 
that if I was sure I was prepared — and so on and 
so on — and with that she reached into her bosom 
and brought out a battered square of brass, watch- 
ing my eye anxiously the while. I fell over against 
her in a quite well-acted faint, which delighted her 
heart and nearly frightened it out of her, too, at the 
same time. When I came to and got calm, she was 
eager to know what I thought of her jewel. 

“ What do I think of it? I think it is the most 
exquisite thing I ever saw.” 

” Do you really? How nice of you to say that! 
But it is a love, now isn’t it? ” 

‘‘Well, I should say so! I’d rather own it than 
the equator.” 

‘‘ I thought you would admire it,” she said. ‘‘ I 
think it is so lovely. And there isn’t another one in 
all these latitudes. People have come all the way 
from the Open Polar Sea to look at it. Did you 
ever see one before? ” 

I said no, this was the first one I had ever seen. 
It cost me a pang to tell that generous lie, for I had 
seen a million of them in my time, this humble jewel 
of hers being nothing but a battered old New York 
Central baggage check. 


60 The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 

“Land!” said I, “you don’t go about with it 
pn your person this way, alone and with no protec- 
tion, not even a dog? ” 

“ Ssh I not so loud,” she said. “Nobody 
knows I carry it with me. They think it is in 
papa’s treasury. That is where it generally is,” 

“ Where is the treasury? ” 

It was a blunt question, and for a moment she 
looked startled and a little suspicious, but I said : 

“ Oh, come, don’t you be afraid about me. At 
home we have seventy millions of people, and 
although I say it myself that shouldn’t, there is not 
one person among them all but would trust me with 
untold fish-hooks.” 

This reassured her, and she told me where the 
hooks were hidden in the house. Then she wandered 
from her course to brag a little about the size of the 
sheets of transparent ice that formed the windows of 
the mansion, and asked me if I had ever seen their 
like at home, and I came right out frankly and con- 
fessed that I hadn’t, which pleased her more than 
she could find words to dress her gratification in. It 
was so easy to please her, and such a pleasure to do 
it, that I went on and said : 

“Ah, Lasca, you are a fortunate girl! — this 
beautiful house, this dainty jewel, that rich treasure, 
all this elegant snow, and sumptuous icebergs and 
limitless sterility, and public bears and walruses, and 
noble freedom and largeness, and everybody’s admir- 
ing eyes upon you, and everybody’s homage and re- 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 61 

spect at your command without the asking; young, 
rich, beautiful, sought, courted, envied, not a re- 
quirement unsatisfied, not a desire ungratified, noth- 
ing to wish for that you cannot have — it is immeas- 
urable good fortune ! I have seen myriads of girls, 
but none of whom these extraordinary things could 
be truthfully said but you alone. And you are 
worthy — worthy of it all, Lasca — I believe it in my 
heart.” 

It made her infinitely proud and happy to hear me 
say this, and she thanked me over and over again 
for that closing remark, and her voice and eyes 
showed that she was touched. Presently she said: 

“Still, it is not all sunshine — there is a cloudy 
side. The burden of wealth is a heavy one to bear. 
Sometimes I have doubted if it were not better to be 
poor — at least not inordinately rich. It pains me 
to see neighboring tribesmen stare as they pass by, 
and overhear them say, reverently, one to another, 
‘There — that is she — the millionaire’s daughter!’ 
And sometimes they say sorrowfully, ‘ She is roll- 
ing in fish-hooks, and I — I have nothing.’ It breaks 
my heart. When I was a child and we were poor, 
we slept with the door open, if we chose, but now 
— now we have to have a night watchman. In those 
days my father was gentle and courteous to all ; but 
now he is austere and haughty, and cannot abide 
familiarity. Once his family were his sole thought, 
but now he goes about thinking of his fish-hooks all 
the time. And his wealth makes everybody cringing 


62 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


and obsequious to him. Formerly nobody laughed 
at his jokes, they being always stale and far-fetched 
and poor, and destitute of the one element that can 
really justify a joke — the element of humor; but 
now everybody laughs and cackles at those dismal^ 
things, and if any fails to do it my father is deeply 
displeased, and shows it. Formerly his opinion was 
not sought upon any matter and was not valuable 
when he volunteered it; it has that infirmity yet, 
but nevertheless it is sought by all and applauded 
by all — and he helps do the applauding himself, 
having no true delicacy and a plentiful want of tact. 
He has lowered the tone of all our tribe. Once 
they were a frank and manly race, now they are 
measly hypocrites, and sodden with servility. In 
my heart of hearts I hate all the ways of million- 
aires ! Our tribe was once plain, simple folk, and 
content with the bone fish-hooks of their fathers; 
now they are eaten up with avarice and would sacri- 
fice every sentiment of honor and honesty to possess 
themselves of the debasing iron fish-hooks of the 
foreigner. However, I must not dwell on these sad 
things. As I have said, it was my dream to be 
loved for myself alone. 

“ At last, this dream seemed about to be fulfilled. 
A stranger came by, one day, who said his name 
was Kalula. I told him my name, and he said he 
loved me. My heart gave a great bound of grati- 
tude and pleasure, for I had loved him at sight, and 
now I said so. He took me to his breast and said 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


63 


he would not wish to be happier than he was now. 
We went strolling together far over the ice floes, 
telling all about each other, and planning, oh, the 
loveliest future ! When we were tired at last we sat 
down and ate, for he had soap and candles and I 
had brought along some blubber. We were hungry, 
and nothing was ever so good. 

‘ ‘ He belonged to a tribe whose haunts were far to 
the north, and I found that he had never heard of 
my father, which rejoiced me exceedingly. I mean 
he had heard of the millionaire, but had never heard 
his name — so, you see, he could not know that I 
was the heiress. You may be sure that I did not 
tell him. I was loved for myself at last, and was 
satisfied. I was so happy — oh, happier than you 
can think ! 

“ By and by it was toward supper time, and I led 
him home. As we approached our house he was 
amazed, and cried out: 

“ * How splendid I Is that your father’s? ’ 

“ It gave me a pang to hear that tone and see that 
admiring light in his eye, but the feeling quickly 
passed away, for I loved him so, and he looked so 
handsome and noble. All my family of aunts and 
uncles and cousins were pleased with him, and many 
guests were called in, and the house was shut up 
tight and the rag-lamps lighted, and when everything 
was hot and comfortable and suffocating, we began 
a joyous feast in celebration of my betrothal. 

“When the feast was over, my father’s vanity 


64 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


overcame him, and he could not resist the temptation 
to show off his riches and let Kalula see what grand 
good fortune he had stumbled into — and mainly, of 
course, he wanted to enjoy the poor man’s amaze- 
ment. I could have cried — but it would have done 
no good to try to dissuade my father, so I said noth- 
ing, but merely sat there and suffered. 

“ My father went straight to the hiding place, in 
full sight of everybody, and got out the fish-hooks 
and brought them and flung them scatteringly over 
my head, so that they fell in glittering confusion on 
the platform at my lover’s knee. 

“Of course, the astounding spectacle took the 
poor lad’s breath away. He could only stare in 
stupid astonishment, and wonder how a single in- 
dividual could possess such incredible riches. Then 
presently he glanced brilliantly up and exclaimed : 

‘“Ah, it is you who are the renowned millionaire ! ’ 

‘ ‘ My father and all the rest burst into shouts of 
happy laughter, and when my father gathered the 
treasure carelessly up as if it might be mere rubbish 
and of no consequence, and carried it back to its 
place, poor Kalula’s surprise was a study. He said : 

“ ‘ Is it possible that you put such things away 
without counting them? ’ 

“ My father delivered a vainglorious horse-laugh, 
and said : 

Well, truly, a body may know you have never 
been rich, since a mere matter of a fish-hook or two 
is such a mighty matter in your eyes.’ 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 65 

“ Kalula was confused, and hung his head, but 
said : 

“ ‘ Ah, indeed, sir, I was never worth the value of 
the barb of one of those precious things, and I have 
never seen any man before who was so rich in them 
as to render the counting of his hoard worth while, 
since the wealthiest man I have ever known, till now, 
was possessed of but three.’ 

“My foolish father roared again with jejune de- 
light, and allowed the impression to remain that he 
was not accustomed to count his hooks and keep 
sharp watch over them. He was showing off, you see. 
Count them? Why, he counted them every day! 

‘ ‘ I had met and got acquainted with my darling 
just at dawn; I had brought him home just at dark, 
three hours afterward — for the days were shorten- 
ing toward the six-months night at that time. We 
kept up the festivities many hours; then, at last, 
the guests departed and the rest of us distributed 
ourselves along the walls on sleeping-benches, and 
soon all were steeped in dreams but me. I was too 
happy, too excited, to sleep. After I had lain quiet 
a long, long time, a dim form passed by me and 
was swallowed up in the gloom that pervaded the 
farther end of the house. I could not make out 
who it was, or whether it was man or woman. 
Presently that figure or another one passed me going 
the other way. I wondered what it all meant, but 
wondering did no good ; and while I was still 
wondering, I fell asleep. 


66 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


“ I do not know how long I slept, but at last I 
came suddenly broad awake and heard my father 
say in a terrible voice, ‘ By the great Snow God, 
there’s a fish-hook gone ! ’ Something told me that 
that meant sorrow for me, and the blood in my veins 
turned cold. The presentiment was confirmed in 
the same instant: my father shouted, ‘Up, every- 
body, and seize the stranger ! ’ Then there was an 
outburst of cries and curses from all sides, and a wild 
rush of dim forms through the obscurity. I flew to 
my beloved’s help, but what could I do but wait and 
wring my hands ? — he was already fenced away 
from me by a living wall, he was being bound hand 
and foot. Not until he was secured would they let 
me get to him. I flung myself upon his poor in- 
sulted form and cried my grief out upon his breast, 
while my father and all my family scoffed at me and 
heaped threats and shameful epithets upon him. 
He bore his ill usage with a tranquil dignity which 
endeared him to me more than ever, and made me 
proud and happy to suffer with him and for him. 
I heard my father order that the elders of the 
tribe be called together to try my Kalula for his life. 

“‘What?’ I said, ‘before any search has been 
made for the lost hook? ’ 

“‘Lost hook!’ they all shouted, in derision; 
and my father added, mockingly, ‘ Stand back, 
everybody, and be properly serious — she is going 
to hunt up that lost hook; oh, without doubt she 
will find it! ’ — whereat they all laughed again. 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 67 

“ I was not disturbed — I had no fears, no doubts. 
I said : 

“ ‘ It is for you to laugh now; it is your turn. 
But ours is coming; wait and see.’ 

“ I got a rag-lamp. I thought I should find that 
miserable thing in one little moment; and I set 
about the matter with such confidence that those 
people grew grave, beginning to suspect that perhaps 
they had been too hasty. But, alas and alas ! — oh, 
the bitterness of that search ! There was deep 
silence while one might count his fingers ten or 
twelve times, then my heart began to sink, and 
around me the mockings began again, and grew 
steadily louder and more assured, until at last, when 
I gave up, they burst into volley after volley of cruel 
laughter. 

“ None will ever know what I suffered then. But 
my love was my support and my strength, and I 
took my rightful place at my Kalula’s side, and put 
my arm about his neck, and whispered in his ear, 
saying : 

‘You are innocent, my own — that I know; but 
say it to me yourself, for my comfort, then I can 
bear whatever is in store for us.’ 

“ He answered : 

“ ‘ As surely as I stand upon the brink of death at 
this moment, I am innocent. Be comforted, then, 
O bruised heart; be at peace, O thou breath of my 
nostrils, life of my life ! ’ 

“ ‘Now, then, let the elders come! ’ — and as I 


68 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 


said the words there was a gathering sound of 
crunching snow outside, and then a vision of stoop- 
ing forms filing in at the door — the elders. 

‘ ‘ My father formally accused the prisoner, and 
detailed the happenings of the night. He said that 
the watchman was outside the door, and that in 
the house were none but the family and the stranger. 
‘ Would the family steal their own property? ’ 

He paused. The elders sat silent many minutes ; 
at last, one after another said to his neighbor, ‘ This 
looks bad for the stranger ’ — sorrowful words for 
me to hear. Then my father sat down. O miser- 
able, miserable me ! at that very moment I could have 
proved my darling innocent, but I did not know it ! 

‘ ‘ The chief of the court asked : 

“ ‘ Is there any here to defend the prisoner? ’ 

“ I rose and said : 

“ ‘ Why should Ae steal that hook, or any or all of 
them? In another day he would have been heir to 
the whole I ’ 

“ I stood waiting. There was a long silence, the 
steam from the many breaths rising about me like a 
fog. At last, one elder after another nodded his 
head slowly several times, and muttered, ‘ There is 
force in what the child has said.’ Oh, the heart- 
lift that was in those words ! — so transient, but 
oh, so precious ! I sat down. 

“ ‘ If any would say further, let him speak now, 
or after hold his peace,’ said the chief of the court. 

“ My father rose and said : 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 69 

“‘In the night a form passed by me in the 
gloom, going toward the treasury, and presently 
returned. I think, now, it was the stranger.’ 

“ Oh, I was like to swoon ! I had supposed that 
that was my secret; not the grip of the great Ice 
God himself could have dragged it out of my heart. 

The chief of the court said sternly to my poor 
Kalula: 

“ ‘Speak! ’ 

“ Kalula hesitated, then answered; 

“ ‘ It was I. I could not sleep for thinking of the 
beautiful hooks. I went there and kissed them and 
fondled them, to appease my spirit and drown it in 
a harmless joy, then I put them back. I may have 
dropped one, but I stole none.’ 

‘ ‘ Oh, a fatal admission to make in such a place I 
There was an awful hush. I knew he had pro- 
nounced his own doom, and that all was over. On 
every face you could see the words hieroglyphed : 

‘ It is a confession I — and paltry, lame, and thin.’ 

“ I sat drawing in my breath in faint gasps — and 
waiting. Presently, I heard the solemn words I 
knew were coming; and each word, as it came, was 
a knife in my heart : 

“ ‘ It is the command of the court that the accused 
be subjected to the trial by water.' 

“Oh, curses be upon the head of him who 
brought ‘ trial by water ’ to our land ! It came, 
generations ago, from some far country, that lies 
none knows where. Before that, our fathers used 
6 


70 The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 

augury and other unsure methods of trial, and 
doubtless some poor, guilty creatures escaped with 
their lives sometimes ; but it is not so with trial by 
water, which is an invention by wiser men than we 
poor, ignorant savages are. By it the innocent are 
proved innocent, without doubt or question, for 
they drown ; and the guilty are proven guilty with 
the same certainty, for they do not drown. My 
heart was breaking in my bosom, for I said, * He is 
innocent, and he will go down under the waves and 
I shall never see him more.’ 

‘ ‘ I never left his side after that. I mourned in his 
arms all the precious hours, and he poured out the 
deep stream of his love upon me, and oh, I was so 
miserable and so happy ! At last, they tore him 
from me, and I followed sobbing after them, and 
saw them fling him into the sea — then I covered my 
face with my hands. Agony? Oh, I know the 
deepest deeps of that word ! 

‘ ‘ The next moment the people burst into a shout 
of malicious joy, and I took away my hands, 
startled. Oh, bitter sight — he was swimming! 

“My heart turned instantly to stone, to ice. I 
said, ‘ He was guilty, and he lied to me ! ’ 

‘ * I turned my back in scorn and went my way 
homew’ard. 

They took him far out to sea and set him on an 
iceberg that was drifting southward in the great 
waters. Then my family came home, and my 
father said to me : 


The Esquimau Maiden’s Romance 71 

“ ‘ Your thief sent his dying message to you, say- 
ing, ‘ ‘ Tell her I am innocent, and that all the days 
and all the hours and all the minutes while I starve 
and perish I shall love her and think of her and bless 
the day that gave me sight of her sweet face.” 
Quite pretty, even poetical ! ’ 

‘‘ I said, ‘ He is dirt — let me never hear mention 
of him again.’ And oh, to think — he was inno- 
cent all the time ! 

‘‘Nine months — nine dull, sad months — went 
by, and at last came the day of the Great Annual 
Sacrifice, when all the maidens of the tribe wash 
their faces and comb their hair. With the first 
sweep of my comb, out came the fatal fish-hook 
from where it had been all those months nestling, 
and I fell fainting into the arms of my remorseful 
father! Groaning, he said, ‘We murdered him, 
and I shall never smile again I ’ He has kept his 
word. Listen: from that day to this not a month 
goes by that I do not comb my hair. But oh, where 
is the good of it all now 1 ’ ’ 

So ended the poor maid’s humble little tale — 
whereby we learn that, since a hundred million dol- 
lars in New York and twenty- two fish-hooks on the 
border of the Arctic Circle represent the same 
financial supremacy, a man in straitened circum- 
stances is a fool to stay in New York when he can 
buy ten cents’ worth of fish-hooks and emigrate. 


E 


THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED 
HADLEYBURG 


I 

I T was many years ago. Hadleyburg was the most 
honest and upright town in all the region round 
about. It had kept that reputation unsmirched dur- 
ing three generations, and was prouder of it than of 
any other of its possessions. It was so proud of it, 
and so anxious to insure its perpetuation, that it be- 
gan to teach the principles of honest dealing to its 
babies in the cradle, and made the like teachings the 
staple of their culture thenceforward through all the 
years devoted to their education. Also, throughout 
the formative years temptations were kept out of the 
way of the young people, so that their honesty could 
have every chance to harden and solidify, and be- 
come a part of their very bone. The neighboring 
towns were jealous of this honorable supremacy, 
and affected to sneer at Hadleyburg’ s pride in it and 
call it vanity ; but all the same they were obliged to 
acknowledge that Hadleyburg was in reality an in- 
corruptible town; and if pressed they would also 
acknowledge that the mere fact that a young man 

( 72 ) 


73 


The Man that Corrupted Hadley burg 

hailed from Hadleyburg was all the recommendation 
he needed when he went forth from his natal town 
to seek for responsible employment. 

But at last, in the drift of time, Hadleyburg had 
the ill luck to offend a passing stranger — possibly 
without knowing it, certainly without caring, for 
Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared not 
a rap for strangers or their opinions. Still, it would 
have been well to make an exception in this one’s 
case, for he was a bitter man and revengeful. All 
through his wanderings during a whole year he kept 
his injury in mind, and gave all his leisure moments 
to trying to invent a compensating satisfaction for it. 
He contrived many plans, and all of them were 
good, but none of them was quite sweeping enough; 
the poorest of them would hurt a great many indi- 
viduals, but what he wanted was a plan which would 
comprehend the entire town, and not let so much as 
one person escape unhurt. At last he had a for- 
tunate idea, and when it fell into his brain it lit up 
his whole head with an evil joy. He began to form 
a plan at once, saying to himself, “ That is the thing 
to do — I will corrupt the town.” 

Six months later he went to Hadleyburg, and 
arrived in a buggy at the house of the old cashier of 
the bank about ten at night. He got a sack out of 
the buggy, shouldered it, and staggered with it 
through the cottage yard, and knocked at the door. 
A woman’s voice said ‘‘ Come in,” and he entered, 
and set his sack behind the stove in the parlor, 


74 


The Mar* that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


saying politely to the old lady who sat reading the 
Missionary Herald by the lamp : 

“ Pray keep your seat, madam, I will not disturb 
you. There — now it is pretty well concealed; one 
would hardly know it was there. Can I see your 
husband a moment, madam? ” 

No, he was gone to Brixton, and might not return 
before morning. 

“ Very well, madam, it is no matter. I merely 
wanted to leave that sack in his care, to be delivered 
to the rightful owner when he shall be found. I am 
a stranger; he does not know me; I am merely 
passing through the town to-night to discharge a 
matter which has been long in my mind. My 
errand is now completed, and I go pleased and a 
little proud, and you will never see me again. 
There is a paper attached to the sack which will 
explain everything. Good-night, madam.” 

The old lady was afraid of the mysterious big 
stranger, and was glad to see him go. But her 
curiosity was roused, and she went straight to the 
sack and brought away the paper. It began as 
follows : 

“ T’O BE Published ; or, the right man sought out by private in- 
quiry — either will answer. This sack contains gold coin weighing a 
hundred and sixty pounds four ounces — ” 

” Mercy on us, and the door not locked ! ” 

Mrs. Richards flew to it all in a tremble and 
locked it, then pulled down the window-shades and 
stood frightened, worried, and wondering if there 


75 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

was anything else she could do toward making her- 
self and the money more safe. She listened awhile 
for burglars, then surrendered to curiosity and went 
back to the lamp and finished reading the paper : 

I am a foreigner^ and am presently going back to my own country ^ 
to remain there permanently. lam grateful to America for what I 
have received at her hands during my long stay under her flag ; and to 
one of her citizens — a citizen of Hadleyburg — lam especially grateful 
for a great kindness done me a year or two ago. Two great kindnesses ^ 
in fact. I will explain, I was a gambler. I say / was. I was a 
ruined gambler. I arrived in this village at night, hungry and without 
a pe7iny. I asked for help — in the dark ; I was ashamed to beg in the 
light. I begged of the right man. He gave me twenty dollars — that 
is to say, he gave me life, as I considered it. He also gave me fortune ; 
for out of that money I have made myself rich at the gaming-table. 
And finally, a remark which he 7nade to me has remained with me to 
this day, and has at last conquered me ; and in conquering has saved 
the reinnatit of my morals : I shall gamble no more. Now I have no 
idea who that man was, but I want him found, and I want hhn to 
have this money, to give away, throw away, or keep, as he pleases. It 
is fiierely my way of testifying my gratitude to him. If I could stay, 
I would find him myself; but no matter, he will be found. This is an 
honest town, an incorruptible town, and I know I can trust it without 
fear. This man can be identified by the remark which he made to 
me ; I feel persuaded that he will remember it. 

** And now my plan is this : If you prefer to conduct the inquiry 
privately, do so. Tell the contents of this present writing to any one 
who is likely to be the right inan. If he shall answer, * I am the man; 
the remark I made was so-and-so^ apply the test — to wit : open the 
sack, and in it you will find a sealed envelope containing that remark. 
If the remark mentioned by the candidate tallies with it, give him the 
money, and ask no further questions, for he is certainly the right man. 

“ But if you shall prefer a public inquiry, then publish this pres- 
entwriting in the local paper — with these instructions added, to wit : 
Thirty days from now, let the candidate appear at the town-hall at 
eight in the evening (^Friday'), and hand his remark, in a sealed en- 
velope, to the Rev. Mr. Burgess {if he will be kind enough to act') ; and 


76 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


let Mr. Burgess there and then destroy the seals of the sach, open it, 
and see if the remark is correct ; if correct, let the money be delivered, 
with my sincere gratitude, to my benefactor thus identified, ” 

Mrs. Richards sat down, gently quivering with 
excitement, and was soon lost in thinkings — after 
this pattern : ‘ ‘ What a strange thing it is ! . . . 

And what a fortune for that kind man who set 
his bread afloat upon the waters ! ... If it had 
only been my husband that did it ! — for we are so 
poor, so old and poor! . . .” Then, with a sigh 
— “ But it was not my Edward; no, it was not he 
that gave a stranger twenty dollars. It is a pity, 
too; I see it now. . . .” Then, with a shudder — 
“ But it gambler' s \ the wages of sin: we 

couldn’t take it; we couldn’t touch it. I don’t like 
to be near it; it seems a defilement.” She moved 
to a farther chair. . . . ‘ ‘ I wish Edward would 
come, and take it to the bank; a burglar might 
come at any moment ; it is dreadful to be here all 
alone with it.” 

At eleven Mr. Richards arrived, and while his wife 
was saying, ‘‘ I am so glad you’ve come I ” he was 
saying, ‘‘I’m so tired — tired clear out; it is dread- 
ful to be poor, and have to make these dismal jour- 
neys at my time of life. Always at the grind, grind, 
grind, on a salary — another man’s slave, and he sit- 
ting at home in his slippers, rich and comfortable.” 

‘‘ I am so sorry for you, Edward, you know that; 
but be comforted : we have our livelihood ; we 
have our good name — ” 


77 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

Yes, Mary, and that is everything. Don’t mind 
my talk — it’s just a moment’s irritation and doesn’t 
mean anything. Kiss me — there, it’s all gone now, 
and I am not complaining any more. What have 
you been getting? What’s in the sack? ” 

Then his wife told him the great secret. It dazed 
him for a moment ; then he said : 

“ It weighs a hundred and sixty pounds? Why, 
Mary, it’s for-ty thou-sand dollars — think of it — a 
whole fortune ! Not ten men in this village are 
worth that much. Give me the paper.” 

He skimmed through it and said : 

‘‘Isn’t it an adventure! Why, it’s a romance; 
it’s like the impossible things one reads about in 
books, and never sees in life.” He was well stirred 
up now; cheerful, even gleeful. He tapped his old 
wife on the cheek, and said, humorously, ‘‘Why, 
we’re rich, Mary, rich; all we’ve got to do is to 
bury the money and burn the papers. If the 
gambler ever comes to inquire, we’ll merely look 
coldly upon him and say : ‘ What is this nonsense 
you are talking? We have never heard of you and 
your sack of gold before ; ’ and then he would look 
foolish, and — ’’ 

‘‘ And in the meantime, while you are running on 
with your jokes, the money is still here, and it is fast 
getting along toward burglar- time.” 

‘‘ True. Very well, what shall we do — make the 
inquiry private? No, not that: it would spoil the 
romance. The public method is better. Think 


78 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


what a noise it will make ! And it will make all the 
other towns jealous; for no stranger would trust 
such a thing to any town but Hadleyburg, and they 
know it. It’s a great card for us. I must get to 
the printing-office now, or I shall be too late.” 

‘‘But stop — stop — don’t leave me here alone 
with it, Edward ! ’ ’ 

But he was gone. For only a little while, how- 
ever. Not far from his own house he met the 
editor-proprietor of the paper, and gave him the 
document, and said, ‘‘ Here is a good thing for you, 
Cox — put it in.” 

‘‘ It may be too late, Mr. Richards, but I’ll see.” 

At home again he and his wife sat down to talk 
the charming mystery over; they were in no con- 
dition for sleep. The first question was. Who could 
the citizen have been who gave the stranger the 
twenty dollars? It seemed a simple one; both 
answered it in the same breath — 

‘ ‘ Barclay Goodson . ” 

“Yes,” said Richards, ‘‘he could have done it, 
and it would have been like him, but there’s not 
another in the town.” 

‘ ‘ Everybody will grant that, Edward — grant it 
privately, anyway. For six months, now, the vil- 
lage has been its own proper self once more — hon- 
est, narrow, self-righteous, and stingy.” 

‘ ‘ It is what he always called it, to the day of his 
death — said it right out publicly, too.” 

‘‘ Yes, and he was hated for it.” 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 79 

“Oh, of course; but he didn’t care. I reckon 
he was the best-hated man among us, except the 
Reverend Burgess.’’ 

“Well, Burgess deserves it — he will never get 
another congregation here. Mean as the town is, it 
knows how to estimate him. Edward, doesn’t it 
seem odd that the stranger should appoint Burgess 
to deliver the money? ’’ 

‘ ‘ Well, yes — it does. That is — that is — ’ ’ 

“Why so much that-w-ing? V\fo\x\d you select 
him?’’ 

“Mary, maybe the stranger knows him better 
than this village does.’’ 

“ Much that would help Burgess ! ’’ 

The husband seemed perplexed for an answer; 
the wife kept a steady eye upon him, and waited. 
Finally Richards said, with the hesitancy of one 
who is making a statement which is likely to en- 
counter doubt, 

“ Mary, Burgess is not a bad man.” 

His wife was certainly surprised. 

“ Nonsense ! ’’ she exclaimed. 

“ He is not a bad man. I know. The whole of 
his unpopularity had its foundation in that one thing 
— the thing that made so much noise.’’ 

“That ‘one thing,’ indeed! As if that ‘one 
thing’ wasn’t enough, all by itself.’’ 

“ Plenty. Plenty. Only he wasn’t guilty of it.’’ 

“ How you talk! Not guilty of it! Everybody 
knows he was guilty.’’ 


80 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


* ‘ Mary, I give you my word — he was innocent. 

“ I can’t believe it, and I don’t. How do you 
know?” . 

“It is a confession. I am ashamed, but I will 
make it. I was the only man who knew he was 
innocent. I could have saved him, and — and — 
well, you know how the town was wrought up — I 
hadn’t the pluck to do it. It would have turned 
everybody against me. I felt mean, ever so mean; 
but I didn’t dare; I hadn’t the manliness to face 
that.” 

Mary looked troubled, and for a while was silent. 
Then she said, stammeringly: 

‘‘I — I don’t think it would have done for you to 
— to — One mustn’t — er — public opinion — one 
has to be so careful — so — ” It was a difficult road, 
and she got mired ; but after a little she got started 
again. “It was a great pity, but — Why, we 
couldn’t afford it, Edward — we couldn’t indeed. 
Oh, I wouldn’t have had you do it for anything! ” 

‘ ‘ It would have lost us the good-will of so many 
people, Mary; and then — and then — ” 

” What troubles me now is, what he thinks of us, 
Edward.” 

” He? He doesn’t suspect that I could have 
saved him.” 

” Oh,” exclaimed the wife, in a tone of relief, ” I 
am glad of that. As long as he doesn’t know that 
you could have saved him, he — he — well, that 
makes it a great deal better. Why, I might have 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


81 


known he didn’t know, because he is always trying 
to be friendly with us, as little encouragement as we 
give him. More than once people have twitted me 
with it. There’s the Wilsons, and the Wilcoxes, 
and the Harknesses, they take a mean pleasure in 
saying, 'Your friend 'Bur because they know it 
pesters me. I wish he wouldn’t persist in liking us 
so; I can’t think why he keeps it up.” 

” I can explain it. It’s another confession. 
When the thing was new and hot, and the town 
made a plan to ride him on a rail, my conscience 
hurt me so that I couldn’t stand it, and I went 
privately and gave him notice, and he got out of 
the town and staid out till it was safe to come back. ’ ’ 
‘‘ Edward ! If the town had found it out — ” 
"Don't! It scares me yet, to think of it. I 
repented of it the minute it was done; and I was 
even afraid to tell you, lest your face might betray 
it to somebody. I didn’t sleep any that night, for 
worrying. But after a few days I saw that no one 
was going to suspect me, and after that I got to 
feeling glad I did it. And I feel glad yet, Mary — 
glad through and through.” 

” So dp I, now, for it would have been a dreadful 
way to treat him. Yes, I’m glad; for really you did 
owe him that, you know. But, Edward, suppose it 
should come out yet, some day ! ” 

‘‘It won’t.” 

‘‘Why?” 

‘‘ Because everybody thinks it was Goodson.” 


82 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


‘ ‘ Of course they would ! ’ ’ 

“Certainly. And of course he didn’t care. 
They persuaded poor old Sawlsberry to go and 
charge it on him, and he went blustering over there 
and did it. Goodson looked him over, like as if he 
was hunting for a place on him that he could despise 
the most, then he says, ‘ So you are the Committee 
of Inquiry, are you ? ’ Sawlsberry said that was 
about what he was. ‘ Hm. Do they require par- 
ticulars, or do you reckon a kind of a general 
answer will do? ’ ‘If they require particulars, I will 
come back, Mr. Goodson; I will take the general 
answer first.’ ‘Very well, then, tell them to go to 
hell — I reckon that’s general enough. And I’ll 
give you some advice, Sawlsberry; when you come 
back for the particulars, fetch a basket to carry the 
relics of yourself home in.’ ’’ 

“ Just like Goodson ; it’s got all the marks. He 
had only one vanity: he thought he could give 
advice better than any other person.’’ 

“It settled the business, and saved us, Mary. 
The subject was dropped.’’ 

“ Bless you. I’m not doubting that.''^ 

Then they took up the gold-sack mystery again, 
with strong interest. Soon the conversation began 
to suffer breaks — interruptions caused by absorbed 
thinkings. The breaks grew more and more fre- 
quent. At last Richards lost himself wholly in 
thought. He sat long, gazing vacantly at the floor, 
and by and by he began to punctuate his thoughts 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


83 


with little nervous movements of his hands that 
seemed to indicate vexation. Meantime his wife 
too had relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and her 
movements were beginning to show a troubled dis- 
comfort. Finally Richards got up and strode aim- 
lessly about the room, plowing his hands through 
his hair, much as a somnambulist might do who was 
having a bad dream. Then he seemed to arrive at a 
definite purpose ; and without a word he put on his 
hat and passed quickly out of the house. His wife 
sat brooding, with a drawn face, and did not seem 
to be aware that she was alone. Now and then she 
murmured, “Lead us not into t — . . . but — but 

— we are so poor, so poor ! . . . Lead us not 
into. . . . Ah, who would be hurt by it? — and no 
one would ever know. . . . Lead us. ...” The 
voice died out in mumblings. After a little she 
glanced up and muttered in a half-frightened, half- 
glad way — 

‘ ‘ He is gone ! But, oh dear, he may be too late 

— too late. . . . Maybe not — maybe there is still 
time.” She rose and stood thinking, nervously 
clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shud- 
der shook her frame, and she said, out of a dry 
throat, “ God forgive me — it’s awful to think such 
things — but . . . Lord, how we are made — how 
strangely we are made ! ’ ’ 

She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily 
over and kneeled down by the sack and felt of its 
ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them lov- 


84 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


ingly ; and there was a gloating light in her poor old 
eyes. She fell into fits of absence ; and came half 
out of them at times to mutter, “If we had only 
waited ! — oh, if we had only waited a little, and not 
been in such a hurry ! “ 

Meantime Cox had gone home from his office and 
told his wife all about the strange thing that had hap- 
pened, and they had talked it over eagerly, and 
guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in 
the town who could have helped a suffering stranger 
with so noble a sum as twenty dollars. Then there 
was a pause, and the two became thoughtful and 
silent. And by and by nervous and fidgety. At 
last the wife said, as if to herself, 

“Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses 
. . . and us . . . nobody.” 

The husband came out of his thinkings with a 
slight start, and gazed wistfully at his wife, whose 
face was become very pale; then he hesitatingly 
rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his 
wife — a sort of mute inquiry. Mrs. Cox swallowed 
once or twice, with her hand at her throat, then in 
place of speech she nodded her head. In a moment 
she was alone, and mumbling to herself. 

And now Richards and Cox were hurrying 
through the deserted streets, from opposite direc- 
tions. They met, panting, at the foot of the print- 
ing-office stairs ; by the night-light there they read 
each other’s face. Cox whispered, 

“ Nobody knows about this but us? ” 


85 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

The whispered answer was, 

“ Not a soul — on honor, not a soul ! ’ 

“If it isn’t too late to — ’’ 

The men were starting up-stairs ; at this moment 
they were overtaken by a boy, and Cox asked, 

“ Is that you, Johnny? ’’ 

“ Yes, sir.’’ 

“You needn’t ship the early mail — nor any 
mail; wait till I tell you.’’ 

“ It’s already gone, sir.’’ 

‘ ‘ Gone f It had the sound of an unspeakable 
disappointment in it. 

“ Yes, sir. Time-table for Brixton and all the 
towns beyond changed to-day, sir — had to get the 
papers in twenty minutes earlier than common. I 
had to rush ; if I had been two minutes later — ’ ’ 
The men turned and walked slowly away, not 
waiting to hear the rest. Neither of them spoke 
during ten minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed tone, 
“ What possessed you to be in such a hurry, / 
can’t make out.’’ 

The answer was humble enough : 

‘ ‘ I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you 
know, until it was too late. But the next time — ’’ 
“Next time be hanged! It won’t come in a 
thousand years.’’ 

Then the friends separated without a good-night, 
and dragged themselves home with the gait of 
mortally stricken men. At their homes their wives 
sprang up with an eager “ Well? ’’ — then saw the 
6 


86 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


answer with their eyes and sank down sorrowing, 
without waiting for it to come in words. In both 
houses a discussion followed of a heated sort — a 
new thing; there had been discussions before, but 
not heated ones, not ungentle ones. The discussions 
to-night were a sort of seeming plagiarisms of each 
other. Mrs. Richards said, 

“ If you had only waited, Edward — if you had 
only stopped to think; but no, you must run straight 
to the printing-office and spread it all over the world. 

“ It said publish it.” 

‘ ‘ That is nothing ; it also said do it privately, if 
you liked. There, now — is that true, or not? ” 

” Why, yes — yes, it is true; but when I thought 
what a stir it would make, and what a compliment it 
was to Hadleyburg that a stranger should trust it 
so — ” 

” Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had 
only stopped to think, you would have seen that 
you couldn't find the right man, because he is in his 
grave, and hasn’t left chick nor child nor relation 
behind him; and as long as the money went to 
somebody that awfully needed it, and nobody would 
be hurt by it, and — and — ” 

She broke down, crying. Her husband tried to 
think of some comforting thing to say, and presently 
came out with this : 

” But after all, Mary, it must be for the best — it 
must be ; we know that. And we must remember 
that it was so ordered — ’ ’ 


87 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

“Ordered! Oh, everything’s ordered^ when a 
person has to find some way out when he has been 
stupid. Just the same, it was ordered that the 
money should come to us in this special way, and 
it was you that must take it on yourself to go med- 
dling with the designs of Providence — and who 
gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what it 
was — just blasphemous presumption, and no more 
becoming to a meek and humble professor of — ’ ’ 
But, Mary, you know how we have been trained 
all our lives long, like the whole village, till it is 
absolutely second nature to us to stop not a single 
moment to think when there’s an honest thing to be 
done — ’’ 

“ Oh, I know it, I know it — it’s been one ever- 
lasting training and training and training in honesty 
— honesty shielded, from the very cradle, against 
every possible temptation, and so it’s artificial 
honesty, and weak as water when temptation comes, 
as we have seen this night. God knows I never had 
shade nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified and 
indestructible honesty until now — and now, under 
the very first big and real temptation, I — Edward, 
it is my belief that this town’s honesty is as rotten 
as mine is; as rotten as yours is. It is a mean 
town, a hard, stingy town, and hasn’t a virtue in the 
world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and so 
conceited about; and so help me, I do believe that 
if ever the day comes that its honesty falls under 
great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin 


88 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


like a house of cards. There, now, Fve made con- 
fession, and I feel better; I am a humbug, and I’ve 
been one all my life, without knowing it. Let no 
man call me honest again — I will not have it. ’ ’ 

“ I — well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do; 
I certainly do. It seems strange, too, so strange. 
I never could have believed it — never. ’ ’ 

A long silence followed ; both were sunk in 
thought. At last the wife looked up and said, 

“ I know what you are thinking, Edward.” 
Richards had the embarrassed look of a person 
who is caught. 

” I am ashamed to confess it, Mary, but — ” 

” It’s no matter, Edward, I was thinking the same 
question myself.” 

” I hope so. State it.” 

‘‘ You were thinking, if a body could only guess 
out what the remark was that Goodson made to the 
stranger.” 

” It’s perfectly true. I feel guilty and ashamed. 
And you? ” 

” I’m past it. Let us make a pallet here; we’ve 
got to stand watch till the bank vault opens in the 
morning and admits the sack. . . . Oh dear, oh 
dear — if we hadn’t made the mistake ! ” 

The pallet was made, and Mary said : 

The open sesame — what could it have been ? I 
do wonder what that remark could have been? 
But come; we will get to bed now.” 

” And sleep? ” 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


89 


“No: think. “ 

“Yes, think.“ 

By this time the Coxes too had completed their 
spat and their reconciliation, and were turning in — 
to think, to think, and toss, and fret, and worry 
over what the remark could possibly have been 
which Goodson made to the stranded derelict; that 
golden remark; that remark worth forty thousand 
dollars, cash. 

The reason that the village telegraph office was 
open later than usual that night was this: The 
foreman of Cox’s paper was the local representative 
of the Associated Press. One might say its honor- 
ary representative, for it wasn’t four times a year 
that he could furnish thirty words that would be 
accepted. But this time it was different. His 
dispatch stating what he had caught got an instant 
answer : 

^ Send the whole thing — all the details — twelve hundred wordsl'* 

A colossal order! The foreman filled the bill; 
and he was the proudest man in the State. By break- 
fast-time the next morning the name of Hadleyburg 
the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from 
Montreal to the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to 
the orange-groves of Florida; and millions and mill- 
ions of people were discussing the stranger and his 
money-sack, and wondering if the right man would 
be found, and hoping some more news about the 
matter would come soon — right away. 


90 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 
II 

Hadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated — 
astonished — happy — vain. Vain beyond imagina- 
tion. Its nineteen principal citizens and their wives 
went about shaking hands with each other, and 
beaming, and smiling, and congratulating, and say- 
ing this thing adds a new word to the dictionary — 
Hadleyburg y synonym for incorruptible — destined to 
live in dictionaries forever ! And the minor and 
unimportant citizens and their wives went around 
acting in much the same way. Everybody ran to 
the bank to see the gold-sack; and before noon 
grieved and envious crowds began to flock in from 
Brixton and all neighboring towns ; and that after- 
noon and next day reporters began to arrive from 
everywhere to verify the sack and its history and 
write the whole thing up anew, and make dashing 
free-hand pictures of the sack, and of Richards’s 
house, and the bank, and the Presbyterian church, 
and the Baptist church, and the public square, and 
the town-hall where the test would be applied and 
the money delivered ; and damnable portraits of the 
Richardses, and Pinkerton the banker, and Cox, 
and the foreman, and Reverend Burgess, and the 
postmaster — and even of Jack Halliday, who was 
the loafing, good-natured, no-account, irreverent 
fisherman, hunter, boys’ friend, stray-dogs’ friend, 
typical “ Sam Lawson ” of the town. The little 
mean, smirking, oily Pinkerton showed the sack to 
all comers, and rubbed his sleek palms together 


91 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

pleasantly, and enlarged upon the town’s fine old 
reputation for honesty and upon this wonderful 
endorsement of it, and hoped and believed that the 
example would now spread far and wide over the 
American world, and be epoch-making in the matter 
of moral regeneration. And so on, and so on. 

By the end of a week things had quieted down 
again ; the wild intoxication of pride and joy had 
sobered to a soft, sweet, silent delight — a sort of 
deep, nameless, unutterable content. All faces 
bore a look of peaceful, holy happiness. 

Then a change came. It was a gradual change : 
so gradual that its beginnings were hardly noticed ; 
maybe were not noticed at all, except by Jack Hal- 
liday, who always noticed everything; and always 
made fun of it, too, no matter what it was. He 
began to throw out chaffing remarks about people 
not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two 
ago ; and next he claimed that the new aspect was 
deepening to positive sadness ; next, that it was tak- 
ing on a sick look ; and finally he said that everybody 
was become so moody, thoughtful, and absent- 
minded that he could rob the meanest man in town 
of a cent out of the bottom of his breeches pocket 
and not disturb his revery. 

At this stage — or at about this stage — a saying 
like this was dropped at bedtime — with a sigh, 
usually — by the head of each of the nineteen 
principal households: “ Ah, what could have been 
the remark that Goodson made? ” 


92 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


And straightway — with a shudder — came this, 
from the man’s wife: 

“Oh, don't! What horrible thing are you 
mulling in your mind? Put it away from you, for 
God’s sake ! ’’ 

But that question was wrung from those men 
again the next night — and got the same retort. 
But weaker. 

And the third night the men uttered the question 
yet again — with anguish, and absently. This time 
— and the following night — the wives fidgeted 
feebly, and tried to say something. But didn’t. 

And the night after that they found their tongues 
and responded — longingly, 

“ Oh, if we could only guess ! “ 

Halliday’s comments grew daily more and more 
sparklingly disagreeable and disparaging. He went 
diligently about, laughing at the town, individually 
and in mass. But his laugh was the only one left in 
the village: it fell upon a hollow and mournful 
vacancy and emptiness. Not even a smile was 
findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box 
around on a tripod, playing that it was a camera, 
and halted all passers and aimed the thing and said, 
“Ready! — now look pleasant, please,’’ but not 
even this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces 
into any softening. 

So three weeks passed — one week was left. It 
was Saturday evening — after supper. Instead of 
the aforetime Saturday-evening flutter and bustle 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


93 


and shopping and larking, the streets were empty 
and desolate. Richards and his old wife sat apart 
in their little parlor — miserable and thinking. This 
was become their evening habit now: the lifelong 
habit which had preceded it, of reading, knitting, 
and contented chat, or receiving or paying neigh- 
borly calls, was dead and gone and forgotten, ages 
ago — two or three weeks ago ; nobody talked now, 
nobody read, nobody visited — the whole village sat 
at home, sighing, worrying, silent. Trying to guess 
out that remark. 

The postman left a letter. Richards glanced 
listlessly at the superscription and the postmark — 
unfamiliar, both — and tossed the letter on the table 
and resumed his might-have-beens and his hopeless 
dull miseries where he had left them off. Two or 
three hours later his wife got wearily up and was 
going away to bed without a good-night — custom 
now — but she stopped near the letter and eyed it 
awhile with a dead interest, then broke it open, and 
began to skim it over. Richards, sitting there with 
his chair tilted back against the wall and his chin 
between his knees, heard something fall. It was his 
wife. He sprang to her side, but she cried out: 

“Leave me alone, I am too happy. Read the 
letter — read.it ! “ 

He did. He devoured it, his brain reeling. The 
letter was from a distant State, and it said : 

“ I am a stranger to you^ but no matter ; I have something to tell. 
I have just arrived home from Mexico^ and learned about that episode. 


94 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburgf 


Of course you do not know who made that remar k, but I know, and T 
am the only person living who does know. It was Goodson. / knew 
him well, many years ago. I passed through your village that very 
night, and was his guest till the midnight train came along. I over~ 
heard him make that remark to the stranger in the dark — it was in 
Hale Alley. He and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while 
smoking in his house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the 
course of his talk — most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but 
two or three favorably ; among these latter yourself. I say ^favorably ’ 

— nothing stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually like 
any person in the town — not one ; but that you — I think he said 
you — am almost sure — had done him a very great service once, pos- 
sibly without knowing the full value of it, and he wished he had a 
fortune, he would leave it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for 
the rest of the citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that 
service, you are his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I 
know that I can trust to your honor and honesty, for in a citizen of 
Hadleyburg these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am 
going to reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the 
right man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor Good- 
son’s debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the 
remark : ‘ You are far from being a bad man : go, and reform.’ 

“Howard L. Stephenson.’’ 

“ Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so 
grateful, oh, so grateful — kiss me, dear, it’s forever 
since we kissed — and we needed it so — the money 

— and now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, 
and nobody’s slave any more; it seems to me I 
could fly for joy.” 

It was a happy half-hour that the couple spent 
there on the settee caressing each other ; it was the 
old days come again — days that had begun with 
their courtship and lasted without a break till the 
stranger brought the deadly money. By and by the 
wife said : 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


95 


“ Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that 
grand service, poor Goodson ! I never liked him, 
but I love him now. And it was fine and beautiful 
of you never to mention it or brag about it.” 
Then, with a touch of reproach, ‘‘But you ought 
to have told mCy Edward, you ought to have told 
your wife, you know.” 

‘‘Well, I — er — well, Mary, you see — ” 

‘‘Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me 
about it, Edward. I always loved you, and now 
I’m proud of you. Everybody believes there was 
only one good generous soul in this village, and 
now it turns out that you — Edward, why don’t 
you tell me? ” 

‘‘Well — er — er — Why, Mary, I can’t ! ” 
''Yoncan'tf can’t you? ” 

‘‘You see, he — well, he — he made me promise 
I wouldn’t.” 

The wife looked him over, and said, very slowly, 
‘ ‘ Made — you — promise ? Edward, what do 

you tell me that for? ” 

‘‘ Mary, do you think I would lie? ” 

She was troubled and silent for a moment, then 
she laid her hand within his and said : 

‘‘No . . . no. We have wandered far enough 
from our bearings — God spare us that! In all 
your life you have never uttered a lie. But now — 
now that the foundations of things seem to be crum- 
bling from under us, we — we — ” She lost her 
voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, ‘‘ Lead us 


96 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


not into temptation. ... I think you made the 
promise, Edward. Let it rest so. Let us keep 
away from that ground. Now — that is all gone 
by; let us be happy again; it is no time for clouds.’^ 

Edward found it something of an effort to comply, 
for his mind kept wandering — trying to remember 
what the service was that he had done Goodson. 

The couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary 
happy and busy, Edward busy but not so happy. 
Mary was planning what she would do with the 
money. Edward was trying to recall that service. 
At first his conscience was sore on account of the 
lie he had told Mary — if it was a lie. After much 
reflection — suppose it was a lie? What then? 
Was it such a great matter? Aren’t we always 
acting lies? Then why not tell them? Look at 
Mary — look what she had done. While he was 
hurrying off on his honest errand, what was she 
doing? Lamenting because the papers hadn’t been 
destroyed and the money kept ! Is theft better 
than lying? 

That point lost its sting — the lie dropped into 
the background and left comfort behind it. The 
next point came to the front : Had he rendered that 
service? Well, here was Goodson’s own evidence 
as reported in Stephenson’s letter; there could be 
no better evidence than that — it was even proof 
that he had rendered it. Of course. So that point 
was settled. . . . No, not quite. He recalled with 
a wince that this unknown Mr. Stephenson was just 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


97 


a trifle unsure as to whether the performer of it was 
Richards or some other — and, oh dear, he had 
put Richards on his honor ! He must himself 
decide whither that money must go — and Mr. 
Stephenson was not doubting that if he was the 
wrong man he would go honorably and find the 
right one. Oh, it was odious to put a man in such 
a situation — ah, why couldn’t Stephenson have left 
out that doubt ! What did he want to intrude that 
for? 

Further reflection. How did it happen that 
Richards' s name remained in Stephenson’s mind as 
indicating the right man, and not some other man’s 
name? That looked good. Yes, that looked very 
good. In fact, it went on looking better and better, 
straight along — until by and by it grew into posi- 
tive proof. And then Richards put the matter at 
once out of his mind, for he had a private instinct 
that a proof once established is better left so. 

He was feeling reasonably comfortable now, but 
there was still one other detail that kept pushing 
itself on his notice : of course he had done that ser- 
vice — that was settled ; but what was that service ? 
He must recall it — he would not go to sleep till he 
had recalled it; it would make his peace of mind 
perfect. And so he thought and thought. He 
thought of a dozen things — possible services, even 
probable services — but none of them seemed ade- 
quate, none of them seemed large enough, none of 
them seemed worth the money — worth the fortune 


98 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

Goodson had wished he could leave in his will. And 
besides, he couldn’t remember having done them, 
anyway. Now, then — now, then — what kind of 
a service would it be that would make a man so in- 
ordinately grateful? Ah — the saving of his soul! 
That must be it. Yes, he could remember, now, 
how he once set himself the task of converting 
Goodson, and labored at it as much as — he was 
going to say three months ; but upon closer exam- 
ination it shrunk to a month, then to a week, then 
to a day, then to nothing. Yes, he remembered 
now, and with unwelcome vividness, that Goodson 
had told him to go to thunder and mind his own 
business — he wasn’t hankering to follow Hadley- 
burg to heaven I 

So that solution was a failure — he hadn’t saved 
Goodson’ s soul. Richards was discouraged. Then 
after a little came another idea : had he saved Good- 
son’s property? No, that wouldn’t do — he hadn’t 
any. His life? That is it ! Of course. Why, he 
might have thought of it before. This time he was 
on the right track, sure. His imagination-mill was 
hard at work in a minute, now. 

Thereafter during a stretch of two exhausting 
hours he was busy saving Goodson’ s life. He 
saved it in all kinds of difficult and perilous ways. 
In every case he got it saved satisfactorily up to a 
certain point; then, just as he was beginning to gel- 
well persuaded that it had really happened, a 
troublesome detail would turn up which made the 


99 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

whole thing impossible. As in the matter of drown- 
ing, for instance. In that case he had swum out 
and tugged Goodson ashore in an unconscious 
state with a great crowd looking on and applauding, 
but when he had got it all thought out and was just 
beginning to remember all about it, a whole swarm 
of disqualifying details arrived on the ground: the 
town would have known of the circumstance, Mary 
would have known of it, it would glare like a lime- 
light in his own memory instead of being an incon- 
spicuous service which he had possibly rendered 
“without knowing its full value.” And at this 
point he remembered that he couldn’t swim, any- 
way. 

Ah — there was a point which he had been over- 
looking from the start : it had to be a service which 
he had rendered “ possibly without knowing the full 
value of it.” Why, really, that ought to be an easy 
hunt — much easier than those others. And sure 
enough, by and by he found it. Goodson, years 
and years ago, came near marrying a very sweet 
and pretty girl, named Nancy Hewitt, but in some 
way or other the match had been broken off; the 
girl died, Goodson remained a bachelor, and by 
and by became a soured one and a frank despiser 
of the human species. Soon after the girl’s death 
the village found out, or thought it had found out, 
that she carried a spoonful of negro blood in her 
veins. Richards worked at these details a good 
while, and in the end he thought he remembered 
LofC. 


100 The Man that Corrupted Hadley burg 


things concerning them which must have gotten 
mislaid in his memory through long neglect. He 
seemed to dimly remember that it was he that found 
out about the negro blood ; that it was he that told 
the village; that the village told Goodson where 
they got it ; that he thus saved Goodson from 
marrying the tainted girl ; that he had done him this 
great service ‘ ‘ without knowing the full value of 
it,” in fact without knowing that he was doing it; 
but that Goodson knew the value of it, and what a 
narrow escape he had had, and so went to his grave 
grateful to his benefactor and wishing he had a for- 
tune to leave him. It was all clear and simple now, 
and the more he went over it the more luminous and 
certain it grew ; and at last, when he nestled to sleep 
satisfied and happy, he remembered the whole thing 
just as if it had been yesterday. In fact, he dimly 
remembered Goodson’ s telling him his gratitude 
once. Meantime Mary had spent six thousand dol- 
lars on a new house for herself and a pair of slippers 
for her pastor, and then had fallen peacefully to 
rest. 

That same Saturday evening the postman had de- 
livered a letter to each of the other principal citizens 
— nineteen letters in all. No two of the envelopes 
were alike, and no two of the superscriptions were 
in the same hand, but the letters inside were just 
like each other in every detail but one. They were 
exact copies of the letter received by Richards — 
handwriting and all — and were all signed by Stephen- 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg loi 

son, but in place of Richards’s name each receiver’s 
own name appeared. 

All night long eighteen principal citizens did what 
their caste-brother Richards was doing at the same 
time — they put in their energies trying to remember 
what notable service it was that they had uncon- 
sciously done Barclay Goodson. In no case was it 
a holiday job; still they succeeded. 

And while they were at this work, which was diffi- 
cult, their wives put in the night spending the 
money, which was easy. During that one night the 
nineteen wives spent an average of seven thousand 
dollars each out of the forty thousand in the sack — 
a hundred and thirty-three thousand altogether. 

Next day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday. 
He noticed that the faces of the nineteen chief 
citizens and their wives bore that expression of 
peaceful and holy happiness again. He could not 
understand it, neither was he able to invent any 
remarks about it that could damage it or disturb it. 
And so it was his turn to be dissatisfied with life. 
His private guesses at the reasons for the happiness 
failed in all instances, upon examination. When he 
met Mrs. Wilcox and noticed the placid ecstasy in 
her face, he said to himself, “ Her cat has had 
kittens ’ ’ — and went and asked the cook : it was not 
so ; the cook had detected the happiness, but did not 
know the cause. When Halliday found the duplicate 
ecstasy in the face of “ Shadbelly ” Billson (village 
nickname), he was sure some neighbor of Billson’s 
7 


102 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


had broken his leg, but inquiry showed that this had 
not happened. The subdued ecstasy in Gregory 
Yates’s face could mean but one thing — he was a 
mother-in-law short: it was another mistake. “And 
Pinkerton — Pinkerton — he has collected ten cents 
that he thought he was going to lose.” And so on, 
and so on. In some cases the guesses had to re- 
main in doubt, in the others they proved distinct 
errors. In the end Halliday said to himself, “ Any- 
way it foots up that there’s nineteen Hadleyburg 
families temporarily in heaven: I don’t know how it 
happened ; I only know Providence is off duty 
to-day.” 

An architect and builder from the next State had 
lately ventured to set up a small business in this 
unpromising village, and his sign had now been 
hanging out a week. Not a customer yet; he was a 
discouraged man, and sorry he had come. But his 
weather changed suddenly now. First one and then 
another chief citizen’s wife said to him privately: 

“ Come to my house Monday week — but say noth- 
ing about it for the present. We think of building.” 

He got eleven invitations that day. That night 
he wrote his daughter and broke off her match with 
her student. He said she could marry a mile higher 
than that. 

Pinkerton the banker and two or three other well- 
to-do men planned country-seats — but waited. That 
kind don’t count their chickens until they are 
hatched. 


The Man that Corrupted Hadley burg 103 

The Wilsons devised a grand new thing — a fancy- 
dress ball. They made no actual promises, but told 
all their acquaintanceship in confidence that they 
were thinking the matter over and thought they 
should give it — “ and if we do, you will be invited, 
of course.” People were surprised, and said, one 
to another, “Why, they are crazy, those poor 
Wilsons, they can’t afford it.” Several among the 

nineteen said privately to their husbands, ‘‘It is a 

good idea : we will keep still till their cheap thing is 
over, then we will give one that will make it sick.” 

The days drifted along, and the bill of future 
squanderings rose higher and higher, wilder and 

wilder, more and more foolish and reckless. It 

began to look as if every member of the nineteen 
would not only spend his whole forty thousand dol- 
lars before receiving-day, but be actually in debt by 
the time he got the money. In some cases light- 
headed people did not stop with planning to spend, 
they really spent — on credit. They bought land, 
mortgages, farms, speculative stocks, fine clothes, 
horses, and various other things, paid down the 
bonus, and made themselves liable for the rest — at 
ten days. Presently the sober second thought came, 
and Halliday noticed that a ghastly anxiety was be- 
ginning to show up in a good many faces. Again 
he was puzzled, and didn’t know what to make of 
it. ‘‘The Wilcox kittens aren’t dead, for they 
weren’t born; nobody’s broken a leg; there’s no 
shrinkage in mother-in-laws ; nothing has happened 
— it is an unsolvable mystery.” 

G 


104 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


There was another puzzled man, too- — the Rev. 
Mr. Burgess. For days, wherever he went, people 
seemed to follow him or to be watching out for him ; 
and if he ever found himself in a retired spot, a 
member of the nineteen would be sure to appear, 
thrust an envelope privately into his hand, whisper 
“To be opened at the town-hall Friday evening,’* 
then vanish away like a guilty thing. He was ex- 
pecting that there might be one claimant for the sack, 
— doubtful, however, Goodson being dead, — but it 
never occurred to him that all this crowd might be 
claimants. When the great Friday came at last, he 
found that he had nineteen envelopes. 

Ill 

The town-hall had never looked finer. The plat- 
form at the end of it was backed by a showy draping 
of flags ; at intervals along the walls were festoons of 
flags ; the gallery fronts were clothed in flags ; the 
supporting columns were swathed in flags ; all this 
was to impress the stranger, for he would be there 
in considerable force, and in a large degree he would 
be connected with the press. The house was full. 
The 412 fixed seats were occupied; also the 68 
extra chairs which had been packed into the aisles ; 
the steps of the platform were occupied ; some dis- 
tinguished strangers were given seats on the plat- 
form; at the horseshoe of tables which fenced the 
front and sides of the platform sat a strong force of 
special correspondents who had come from every- 


The Man that Corrupted Hadley burg 105 


where. It was the best-dressed house the town had 
ever produced. There were some tolerably expen- 
sive toilets there, and in several cases the ladies who 
wore them had the look of being unfamiliar with that 
kind of clothes. At least the town thought they had 
that look, but the notion could have arisen from the 
town’s knowledge of the fact that these ladies had 
never inhabited such clothes before. 

The gold-sack stood on a little table at the front 
of the platform where all the house could see it. 
The bulk of the house gazed at it with a burning in- 
terest, a mouth-watering interest, a wistful and 
pathetic interest; a minority of nineteen couples 
gazed at it tenderly, lovingly, proprietarily, and the 
male half of this minority kept saying over to them- 
selves the moving little impromptu speeches of 
thankfulness for the audience’s applause and con- 
gratulations which they were presently going to get 
up and deliver. Every now and then one of these 
got a piece of paper out of his vest pocket and 
privately glanced at it to refresh his memory. 

Of course there was a buzz of conversation going 
on — there always is; but at last when the Rev. Mr. 
Burgess rose and laid his hand on the sack he could 
hear his microbes gnaw, the place was so still. He 
related the curious history of the sack, then went on 
to speak in warm terms of Hadleyburg’s old and 
well-earned reputation for spotless honesty, and of 
the town’s just pride in this reputation. He said that 
this reputation was a treasure of priceless value; 


106 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


that under Providence its value had now become 
inestimably enhanced, for the recent episode had 
spread this fame far and wide, and thus had focused 
the eyes of the American world upon this village, 
and mad its name for all time, as he hoped and 
believed, a synonym for commercial incorruptibility. 
\_Applause.'\ “ And who is to be the guardian of 
this noble treasure — the community as a whole? 
No ! The responsibility is individual, not communal. 
From this day forth each and every one of you is in 
his own person its special guardian, and individually 
responsible that no harm shall come to it. Do you 
— does each of you — accept this great trust? 
\Tumultuous asseiit.~\ Then all is well. Transmit 
it to your children and to your children’s children. 
To-day your purity is beyond reproach — see to it 
that it shall remain so. To-day there is not a 
person in your community who could be beguiled 
to touch a penny not his own — see to it that you 
abide in this grace. [“ We will! we willf''~\ 
This is not the place to make comparisons between 
ourselves and other communities — some of them 
ungracious toward us; they have their ways, we 
have ours; let us be content. \_Applause.'\ I am 
done. Under my hand, my friends, rests a stranger’s 
eloquent recognition of what we are ; through him 
the world will always henceforth know what we are. 
We do not know who he is, but in your name I 
utter your gratitude, and ask you to raise your 
voices in endorsement.” 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 107 

The house rose in a body and made the walls 
quake with the thunders of its thankfulness for the 
space of a long minute. Then it sat down, and Mr. 
Burgess took an envelope out of his pocket. The 
house held its breath while he slit the envelope open 
and took from it a slip of paper. He read its con- 
tents — slowly and impressively — the audience 
listening with tranced attention to this magic docu- 
ment, each of whose words stood for an ingot of 
gold: 

** * The remark which I made to the distressed 
stranger was this: You are very far from being a 
bad man: gOy and reform f ’ ’* Then he continued : 

“ We shall know in a moment now whether the re- 
mark here quoted corresponds with the one con- 
cealed in the sack; and if that shall, prove to be so 
— and it undoubtedly will — -this sack of gold be- 
longs to a fellow-citizen who will henceforth stand 
before the nation as the symbol of the special virtue 
which has made our town famous throughout the 
land — Mr. Billson! 

The house had gotten itself all ready to burst into 
the proper tornado of applause; but instead of 
doing it, it seemed stricken with a paralysis ; there 
was a deep hush for a moment or two, then a wave 
of whispered murmurs swept the place — of about 
this tenor: Billson ! oh, come, this is too thin! 

Twenty dollars to a stranger — or anybody — Bill- 
son ! tell it to the marines ! ’ ’ And now at this 
point the house caught its breath all of a sudden in 


108 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


a new access of astonishment, for it discovered that 
whereas in one part of the hall Deacon Billson was 
standing up with his head meekly bowed, in another 
part of it Lawyer Wilson was doing the same. 
There was a wondering silence now for a while. 

Everybody was puzzled, and nineteen couples 
were surprised and indignant. 

Billson and Wilson turned and stared at each 
other. Billson asked, bitingly, 

“ Why do }fou rise, Mr. Wilson? ” 

“ Because I have a right to. Perhaps you will be 
good enough to explain to the house why yoti rise ? ’ ’ 

“With great pleasure. Because I wrote that 
paper.” 

“ It is an impudent falsity! I wrote it myself.” 

It was Burgess’s turn to be paralyzed. He stood 
looking vacantly at first one of the men and then the 
other, and did not seem to know what to do. The 
house was stupefied. Lawyer Wilson spoke up, 
now, and said, 

‘ ‘ I ask the Chair to read the name signed to that 
paper.” 

That brought the Chair to itself, and it read out 
the name, 

“ ‘ John Wharton Billson: ” 

** There I ” shouted Billson, “what have you got 
to say for yourself, now? And what kind of 
apology are you going to make to me and to this 
insulted house for the imposture which you have 
attempted to play here ? ’ ’ 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 109 

“No apologies are due, sir; and as for the rest 
of it, I publicly charge you with pilfering my note 
from Mr. Burgess and substituting a copy of it 
signed with your own name. There is no other way 
by which you could have gotten hold of the test- 
remark; I alone, of living men, possessed the secret 
of its wording.” 

There was likely to be a scandalous state of things 
if this went on ; everybody noticed with distress that 
the short-hand scribes were scribbling like mad; 
many people were crying ‘ ‘ Chair, Chair ! Order ! 
order! ” Burgess rapped with his gavel, and said: 

“Let us not forget the proprieties due. There 
has evidently been a mistake somewhere, but surely 
that is all. If Mr. Wilson gave me an envelope — 
and I remember now that he did — I still have it. ’ ’ 

He took one out of his pocket, opened it, glanced 
at it, looked surprised and worried, and stood silent 
a few moments. Then he waved his hand in a 
wandering and mechanical way, and made an effort 
or two to say something, then gave it up, despond- 
ently. Several voices cried out : 

“ Read it I read it ! What is it? ” 

So he began in a dazed and sleep-walker fashion : 

‘ The remark which I made to the unhappy stran- 
ger was this : Yoti are far from being a bad man. 
[The house gazed at him, marveling.] Goy and 
reform.^'' {Murmurs: ^‘Amazing! what can this 
mean?”] This one,” said the Chair, **is signed 
Thurlow G. Wilson.” 


110 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

“There!” cried Wilson, “I reckon that settles 
it I I knew perfectly well my note was purloined.” 

“Purloined!” retorted Billson. “I’ll let you 
know that neither you nor any man of your kidney 
must venture to — ” 

The Chair. “Order, gentlemen, order! Take 
your seats, both of you, please.” 

They obeyed, shaking their heads and grumbling 
angrily. The house was profoundly puzzled; it 
did not know what to do with this curious emer- 
gency. Presently Thompson got up. Thompson 
was the hatter. He would have liked to be a Nine- 
teener ; but such was not for him : his stock of hats 
was not considerable enough for the position. He 
said : 

“ Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted to make a 
suggestion, can both of these gentlemen be right? 
I put it to you, sir, can both have happened to say 

the very same words to the stranger? It seems to 
> » 

me — 

The tanner got up and interrupted him. The 
tanner was a disgruntled man; he believed himself 
entitled to be a Nineteener, but he couldn’t get 
recognition. It made him a little unpleasant in his 
ways and speech. Said he: 

“ Sho, that's not the point! That could happen 
— twice in a hundred years — but not the other 
thing. Neither of them gave the twenty dollars ! ’ ’ 

\A ripple of applause. 

Billson. ‘‘/did!” 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 111 


Wt/son, “/did!” 

Then each accused the other of pilfering. 

Tke Chair. “Order! Sit down, if you please 
— both of you. Neither of the notes has been out 
of my possession at any moment.” 

A Voice. ‘ ‘ Good — that settles that ! ” 

The Tanner. “Mr. Chairman, one thing is now 
plain : one of these men has been eavesdropping un- 
der the other one’s bed, and filching family secrets. 
If it is not unparliamentary to suggest it, I will re- 
mark that both are equal to it. [ The Chair. ‘ ‘ Order ! 
order ! ”] I withdraw the remark, sir, and will con- 
fine myself to suggesting that if one of them has 
overheard the other reveal the test-remark to his 
wife, we shall catch him now.” 

A Voice. “How?” 

The Tanner. ‘ ‘ Easily. The two have not 
quoted the remark in exactly the same words. You 
would have noticed that, if there hadn’t been a con- 
siderable stretch of time and an exciting quarrel in- 
serted between the two readings.” 

A Voice. “ Name the difference.” 

The Tanner. “The word very is in Billson’s 
note, and not in the other.” 

Many Voices. “ That’s so — he’s right!” 

The Tanner. “ And so, if the Chair will examine 
the test-remark in the sack, we shall know which of 
these two frauds — \The Chair. “Order!”] — 
which of these two adventurers — \The Chair. 
‘ ‘ Order ! order ! ” ] — which of these two gentlemen 


112 The Man that Corrupted Hadley burg 


— \laughter and applause\ — is entitled to wear the 
belt as being the first dishonest blatherskite ever 
bred in this town — which he has dishonored, and 
which will be a sultry place for him from now out!” 
[ Vigorous applause. 

Many Voices. ‘ ‘ Open it ! — open the sack ! ’ ’ 

Mr. Burgess made a slit in the sack, slid his hand 
in and brought out an envelope. In it were a 
couple of folded notes. He said : 

“ One of these is marked, ‘Not to be examined 
until all written communications which have been 
addressed to the Chair — if any — shall have been 
read.' The other is marked ‘ The Test.' Allow 
me. It is worded — to wit: 

‘ ‘ ‘ I do not require that the first half of the re- 
mark which was made to me by my benefactor shall 
be quoted with exactness, for it was not striking, 
and could be forgotten ; but its closing fifteen words 
are quite striking, and I think easily rememberable ; 
unless these shall be accurately reproduced, let the 
applicant be regarded as an impostor. My bene- 
factor began by saying he seldom gave advice to any 
one, but that it always bore the hall-mark of high 
value when he did give it. Then he said this — and 
it has never faded from my memory : You are far 

from being a bad man — " 

Fifty Voices. “That settles it — the money’s 
Wilson’s I Wilson! Wilson! Speech! Speech!” 

People jumped up and crowded around Wilson, 
wringing his hand and congratulating fervently — 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg II3 


meantime the Chair was hammering with the gavel 
and shouting: 

‘ ‘ Order, gentlemen ! Order ! Order ! Let me 
finish reading, please.” When quiet was restored, 
the reading was resumed — as follows : 

“ ^ Goy and reform — mark my words — some 
dayy for your sinSy you will die and go to hell or Had- 
leyburg— AND MAKE IT THE FORMER.” ’ ” 

A ghastly silence followed. First an angry cloud 
began to settle darkly upon the faces of the citizen- 
ship ; after a pause the cloud began to rise, and a 
tickled expression tried to take its place; tried so 
hard that it was only kept under with great and 
painful difficulty; the reporters, the Brixtonites, 
and other strangers bent their heads down and 
shielded their faces with their hands, and managed 
to hold in by main strength and heroic courtesy. 
At this most inopportune time burst upon the still- 
ness the roar of a solitary voice — Jack Halliday’s: 

‘ ‘ That's got the hall-mark on it ! ” 

Then the house let go, strangers and all. Even 
Mr. Burgess’s gravity broke down presently, then 
the audience considered itself officially absolved from 
all restraint, and it made the most of its privilege. 
It was a good long laugh, and a tempestuously 
whole-hearted one, but it ceased at last — long 
enough for Mr. Burgess to try to resume, and for 
the people to get their eyes partially wiped ; then it 
broke out again ; and afterward yet again ; then at 
last Burgess was able to get out these serious words : 


114 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


“ It is useless to try to disguise the fact — we find 
ourselves in the presence of a matter of grave import. 
It involves the honor of your town, it strikes at the 
town’s good name. The difference of a single word 
between the test-remarks offered by Mr. Wilson and 
Mr. Billson was itself a serious thing, since it indi- 
cated that one or the other of these gentlemen had 
committed a theft — ’ ’ 

The two men were sitting limp, nerveless, crushed ; 
but at these words both were electrified into move- 
ment, and started to get up — 

“Sit down!’’ said the Chair, sharply, and they 
obeyed. “ That, as I have said, was a serious thing. 
And it was — but for only one of them. But the 
matter has become graver; for the honor of both is 
now in formidable peril. Shall I go even further, 
and say in inextricable peril? Both left out the 
crucial fifteen words.’’ He paused. During several 
moments he allowed the pervading stillness to gather 
and deepen its impressive effects, then added : 
“ There would seem to be but one way whereby this 
could happen. I ask these gentlemen — Was there 
collusion ? — agreement ? ” 

A low murmur sifted through the house ; its im- 
port was, “ He’s got them both.’’ 

Billson was not used to emergencies ; he sat in a 
helpless collapse. But Wilson was a lawyer. He 
struggled to his feet, pale and worried, and said : 

“ I ask the indulgence of the house while I explain 
this most painful matter. I am sorry to say what I 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg llS 

am about to say, since it must inflict irreparable in- 
jury upon Mr. Billson, whom I have always esteemed 
and respected until now, and in whose invulnerability 
to temptation I entirely believed — as did you all. 
But for the preservation of my own honor I must 
speak — and with frankness. I confess with shame 
— and I now beseech your pardon for it — that I 
said to the ruined stranger all of the words con- 
tained in the test-remark, including the disparaging 
fifteen. \_Sensation,'\ When the late publication 
was made I recalled them, and I resolved to claim 
the sack of coin, for by every right I was entitled to 
it. Now I will ask you to consider this point, and 
weigh it well: that stranger’s gratitude to me that 
night knew no bounds ; he said himself that he could 
' find no words for it that were adequate, and that if 
'he should ever be able he would repay me a thou- 
sand fold. Now, then, I ask you this: Could I ex- 
pect — could I believe — could I even remotely 
imagine — that, feeling as he did, he would do so 
ungrateful a thing as to add those quite unnecessary 
fifteen words to his test? — set a trap for me? — 
expose me as a slanderer of my own town before my 
own people assembled in a public hall? It was pre- 
posterous; it was impossible. His test would con- 
tain only the kindly opening clause of my remark. 
Of that I had no shadow of doubt. You would 
have thought as I did. You would not have ex- 
pected a base betrayal from one whom you had be- 
friended and against whom you had committed no 


116 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


offense. And so, with perfect confidence, perfect 
trust, I wrote on a piece of paper the opening words 
— ending with ‘Go, and reform,’ — and signed it. 
When I was about to put it in an envelope I was 
called into my back office, and without thinking I 
left the paper lying open on my desk.” He 
stopped, turned his head slowly toward Billson, 
waited a moment, then added : ‘ ‘ I ask you to note 

this: when I returned, a little later, Mr. Billson was 
retiring by my street door.” ^^Sensation?^ 

In a moment Billson was on his feet and shouting : 
” It’s a lie ! It’s an infamous lie ! ” 

The Chair, ‘‘Be seated, sir! Mr. Wilson has 
the floor.” 

Billson’ s friends pulled him into his seat and 
quieted him, and Wilson went on: 

‘‘ Those are the simple facts. My note was now 
lying in a different place on the table from where I 
had left it. I noticed that, but attached no import- 
ance to it, thinking a draught had blown it there. 
That Mr. Billson would read a private paper was a 
thing which could not occur to me; he was an 
honorable man, and he would be above that. If 
you will allow me to say it, I think his extra word 
* very ’ stands explained ; it is attributable to a defect 
of memory. I was the only man in the world who 
could furnish here any detail of the test-remark — by 
honorable means. I have finished.” 

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive 
speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the 


The Man that Corrupted Hadley burg 117 

convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience 
not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory. 
Wilson sat down victorious. The house submerged 
him in tides of approving applause ; friends swarmed 
to him and shook him by the hand and congratu- 
lated him, and Billson was shouted down and not 
allowed to say a word. The Chair hammered and 
hammered with its gavel, and kept shouting, 

“ But let us proceed, gentlemen, let us proceed ! ” 
At last there was a measurable degree of quiet, 
and the hatter said : 

“ But what is there to proceed with, sir, but to de- 
liver the money? 

Voices. “That’s it! That’s it I Come forward, 
Wilson! ’’ 

The Hatter. “I move three cheers for Mr. 
Wilson, Symbol of the special virtue which — ’’ 

The cheers burst forth before he could finish ; and 
in the midst of them — and in the midst of the 
clamor of the gavel also — some enthusiasts mounted 
Wilson on a big friend’s shoulder and were going to 
fetch him in triumph to the platform. The Chair’s 
voice now rose above the noise — 

“Order! To your places! You forget that 
there is still a document to be read.’’ When quiet 
had been restored he took up the document, and 
was going to read it, but laid it down again, saying, 

‘ ‘ I forgot ; this is not to be read until all written 
communications received by me have first been 
read.’’ He took an envelope out of his pocket, 
8 


118 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg- 


removed its enclosure, glanced at it — seemed 
astonished — held it out and gazed at it — stared 
at it. 

Twenty or thirty voices cried out : 

‘ ‘ What is it ? Read it ! read it ! ’ ^ 

And he did — slowly, and wondering : 

‘ ‘ ‘ The remark which I made to the stranger — 
Invoices. “Hello! how’s this?’’] — was this: 
“You are far from being a bad man. ^Voices, 
“Great Scott!’’] Go, and reform.’’’ Voice. 
“ Oh, saw my leg off ! ’’] Signed by Mr. Pinker- 
ton the banker.’’ 

The pandemonium of delight which turned itself 
loose now was of a sort to make the judicious weep. 
Those whose withers were unwrung laughed till the 
tears ran down ; the reporters, in throes of laughter, 
set down disordered pot-hooks which would never 
in the world be decipherable; and a sleeping dog 
jumped up, scared out of its wits, and barked itself 
crazy at the turmoil. All manner of cries were scat- 
tered through the din: “We’re getting rich — two 
Symbols of Incorruptibility ! — without counting 
Billson ! ’ ’ “ TAree / — count Shadbelly in — we 

can’t have too many!’’ “All right — Billson’ s 
elected!’’ “Alas, poor Wilson — victim of two 
thieves ! ’ ’ 

A Powerful Voice. “Silence! The Chair’s 
fished up something more out of its pocket.’’ 

Voices. “Hurrah! Is it something fresh? Read 
it ! read ! read ! ’ ’ 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg II9 

The Chair \readihg.'\ “‘The remark which I 
made,’ etc. : You are far from being a bad man. 

Go,’’ etc. Signed, “ Gregory Yates.’’ ’’ 

Tornado of Voices. “Four Symbols!’’ “’Rah 
for Yates!’’ “ Fish again !’ ’ 

The house was in a roaring humor now, and ready 
to get all the fun out of the occasion that might be 
in it. Several Nineteeners, looking pale and dis- 
tressed, got up and began to work their way toward 
the aisles, but a score of shouts went up : 

“ The doors, the doors — close the doors; no In- 
corruptible shall leave this place ! Sit down, every- 
body! ’’ 

The mandate was obeyed. 

“ Fish again ! Read ! read ! ’’ 

The Chair fished again, and once more the familiar 
words began to fall from its lips — ^ “ ‘You are far 
from being a bad man — ’ ’’ 

“ Name ! name ! What’s his name? ’’ 

“ ‘ L. Ingoldsby Sargent.’ ’’ 

“Five elected! Pile up the Symbols! Go on, 
go on ! ’ ’ 

“ ‘You are far from being a bad- — ’ ’’ 

“Name! name!’’ 

“ ‘ Nicholas Whitworth.’ ’’ 

“ Hooray ! hooray ! it’s a symbolical day ! ’’ 
Somebody wailed in, and began to sing this rhyme 
(leaving out “ it’s ’’) to the lovely “ Mikado ’’ tune 
of “When a man’s afraid, a beautiful maid — 
the audience joined in, with joy; then, just in time, 
somebody contributed another line — 


120 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


“ And don’t you this forget — ” 

The house roared it out. A third line was at once 
furnished — 

“ Corruptibles fax from Hadleyburg are — ” 

The house roared that one too. As the last note 
died, Jack Halliday’s voice rose high and clear, 
freighted with a final line — 

“ But the Symbols are here, you bet ! ” 

That was sung, with booming enthusiasm. Then the 
happy house started in at the beginning and sang 
the four lines through twice, with immense swing 
and dash, and finished up with a crashing three- 
times-three and a tiger for ‘ ‘ Hadleyburg the Incor- 
ruptible and all Symbols of it which we shall find 
worthy to receive the hall-mark to-night.” 

Then the shoutings at the Chair began again, all 
over the place : 

‘ ‘ Go on ! go on ! Read ! read some more ! 
Read all you’ve got! ” 

“That’s it — go on! We are winning eternal 
celebrity ! ’ ’ 

A dozen men got up now and began to protest. 
They said that this farce was the work of some 
abandoned joker, and was an insult to the whole 
community. Without a doubt these signatures were 
all forgeries — 

“ Sit down ! sit down ! Shut up ! You are con- 
fessing. We’ll find names in the lot.” 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 121 


“Mr. Chairman, how many of those envelopes 
have you got? “ 

The Chair counted. 

“ Together with those that have been already ex- 
amined, there are nineteen.” 

A storm of derisive applause broke out. 

Perhaps they all contain the secret. I move 
that you open them all and read every signature that 
is attached to a note of that sort — and read also the 
first eight words of the note.” 

‘ ‘ Second the motion ! ’ ’ 

It was put and carried — uproariously. Then 
poor old Richards got up, and his wife rose and 
stood at his side. Her head was bent down, so that 
none might see that she was crying. Her husband 
gave her his arm, and so supporting her, he began 
to speak in a quavering voice : 

“My friends, you have known us two — Mary 
and me — all our lives, and I think you have liked 
us and respected us — ” 

The Chair interrupted him ; 

“Allow me. It is quite true — that which you 
are saying, Mr. Richards : this town does know you 
two ; it does like you ; it does respect you ; more — 
it honors you and loves you — ’ ^ 

Halliday’s voice rang out: 

“ That’s the hall-marked truth, too ! If the Chair 
is right, let the house speak up and say it. Rise ! 
Now, then — hip ! hip ! hip ! — all together ! ’ ’ 

The house rose in mass, faced toward the old 


122 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


couple eagerly, filled the air with a snowstorm of 
waving handkerchiefs, and delivered the cheers with 
all its affectionate heart. 

The Chair then continued : 

“What I was going to say is this: We know 
your good heart, Mr. Richards, but this is not a 
time for the exercise of charity toward offenders. 
\Shouts of ''‘Right ! right I see your generous 

purpose in your face, but I cannot allow you to 
plead for these men — ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ But I was going to — “ 

“ Please take your seat, Mr. Richards. We must 
examine the rest of these notes — simple fairness to 
the men who have already been exposed requires 
this. As soon as that has been done — I give you 
my word for this — you shall be heard.” 

Many Voices. ‘ ‘ Right ! — the Chair is right — no 
interruption can be permitted at this stage ! Go on ! 
— the names ! the names ! — according to the terms 
of the motion ! ’ ’ 

The old couple sat reluctantly down, and the hus- 
band whispered to the wife, “It is pitifully hard to 
have to wait; the shame will be greater than ever 
when they find we were only going to plead for 
ourselves.'^ 

Straightway the jollity broke loose again with the 
reading of the names. 

“ ‘ You are far from being a bad man — ' Sig- 
nature, ‘ Robert J. Titmarsh.’ 

“‘You are far from being a bad man — * Sig- 
nature, ‘ Eliphalet Weeks.' 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 123 

“ ‘ You are far from being a bad man — ^ Sig- 
nature, ‘ Oscar B. Wilder.’ ” 

At this point the house lit upon the idea of taking 
the eight words out of the Chairman’s hands. He 
was not unthankful for that. Thenceforward he 
held up each note in its turn, and waited. The 
house droned out the eight words in a massed and 
measured and musical deep volume of sound (with a 
daringly close resemblance to a well-known church 
chant) — “‘You are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-a-d 
man.’ ’’ Then the Chair said, “ Signature, ‘ Archi- 
bald Wilcox.’ ’’ And so on, and so on, name after 
name, and everybody had an increasingly and glori- 
ously good time except the wretched Nineteen. 
Now and then, when a particularly shining name 
was called, the house made the Chair wait while it 
chanted the whole of the test-remark from the be- 
ginning to the closing words, “And go to hell or 
Hadleyburg — try and make it the for-or-m-e-r ! ’ ’ 
and in these special cases they added a grand and 
agonized and imposing ‘ ‘ A-a-a-a-;;^^^ ! ’ ’ 

The list dwindled, dwindled, dwindled, poor old 
Richards keeping tally of the count, wincing when a 
name resembling his own was pronounced, and wait- 
ing in miserable suspense for the time to come when 
it would be his humiliating privilege to rise with 
Mary and finish his plea, which he was intending to 
word thus: “ . . . for until now we have never 
done any wrong thing, but have gone our humble 
way unreproached. We are very poor, we are old. 


124 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


and have no chick nor child to help us; we were 
sorely tempted, and we fell. It was my purpose 
when I got up before to make confession and beg 
that my name might not be read out in this public 
place, for it seemed to us that we could not bear it; 
but I was prevented. It was just; it was our place 
to suffer with the rest. It has been hard for us. It 
is the first time we have ever heard our name fall 
from any one’s lips — sullied. Be merciful — for 
the sake of the better days; make our shame as 
light to bear as in your charity you can.” At this 
point in his revery Mary nudged him, perceiving 
that his mind was absent. The house was chant- 
ing, ‘‘You are f-a-r,” etc. 

‘‘Be ready,” Mary whispered. ‘‘Your name 
comes now; he has read eighteen.” 

The chant ended. 

‘‘Next! next! next!” came volleying from all 
over the house. 

Burgess put his hand into his pocket. The old 
couple, trembling, began to rise. Burgess fumbled 
a moment, then said, 

‘‘ I find I have read them all.” 

Faint with joy and surprise, the couple sank into 
their seats, and Mary whispered, 

‘‘ Oh, bless God, we are saved ! — he has lost ours 
— I wouldn’t give this for a hundred of those 
sacks ! ’ ’ 

The house burst out with its ‘ ‘ Mikado ’ ’ travesty, 
and sang it three times with ever-increasing enthu- 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 125 

siasm, rising to its feet when it reached for the third 
time the closing line — 

“ But the S)nmbols are here, you bet ! ” 

and finishing up with cheers and a tiger for “ Had- 
leyburg purity and our eighteen immortal representa- 
tives of it.” 

Then Wingate, the saddler, got up and proposed 
cheers ‘‘ for the cleanest man in town, the one soli- 
tary important citizen in it who didn’t try to steal 
that money — Edward Richards.” 

They were given with great and moving hearti- 
ness; then somebody proposed that Richards be 
elected sole guardian and Symbol of the now Sacred 
Hadleyburg Tradition, with power and right to stand 
up and look the whole sarcastic world in the face. 

Passed, by acclamation; then they sang the 
” Mikado ” again, and ended it with, 

** And there’s one Symbol left, you bet ! ” 

There was a pause ; then — 

A Voice. ” Now, then, who’s to get the sack? ” 

The Tanner (with bitter sarcasm). ‘‘ That’s easy. 
The money has to be divided among the eighteen 
Incorruptibles. They gave the suffering stranger 
twenty dollars apiece — and that remark — each in 
his turn — it took twenty-two minutes for the pro- 
cession to move past. Staked the stranger — total 
contribution, $360. All they want is just the loan 
back — and interest — forty thousand dollars alto- 
gether.” 


126 The Mari that Corrupied Hadleyburg; 

Many Voices \_derisivety,'\ ** That’s it! Divvy! 
divVyI Be kind to the poof — don’t keep them 
waiting I ^ ^ 

The Chair. “ Ordet i I flow offer the stranger’s 
remaining document. It Says^ ‘ If no claimant 
shall appear \_grand chofus of groan/\y 1 desire that 
you open the sack and count out the money to the 
principal citizens of your town, they to take' it im 
trust [cfies of Ohl Oh! OhT'']^ and use it in suchi 
ways as to them shall seem best for the propagation! 
and preservation of your community’s noble reputa- 
tion for incorruptible honesty [more cries'] — a repu- 
tation to which their names and their efforts will add 
a new and far-reaching lustre.’ [Enthusiastic out- 
burst of sarcastic applause.] That seems to be all. 
No — here is a postscript; 

“ ‘ P. S. — Citizens of Hadleyburg; There is 
no test-remark — nobody made one. [Great sen- 
sation.] There wasn’t any pauper stranger, nor any 
twenty-dollar contribution, nor any accompanying 
benediction and compliment — these are all inven- 
tions. [General buzz and hum of astonishment and 
delight.] Allow me to tell my story — it will take 
but a word or two. I passed through your town at 
a certain time, and received a deep offense which I 
had not earned. Any other man would have been 
content to kill one or two of you and call it square, 
but to me that would have been a trivial revenge, 
and inadequate; for the dead do not suffer. Be- 
sides, I could not kill you all — and, anyway, made 


The Maft ihdk Coi1il()te(l Hadkyburg 127 

as I am, even that would not haVe satisfied me; 1 
wanted to damage every man in the place, iind 
woman — and not in their bodies Or m their estate, 
but in their vanity^ the place where feeble and 
foolish people are most vulnerable. So I disguised 
myself and came back and studied you. You were 
easy game. You had an old and lofty reputation 
for honesty, and naturally you were proud of It-^ 
it was your treasure of treasures, the very apple of 
your eye. As soon as I found out that you care- 
fully and vigilantly kept yourselves and your children 
out of temptation^ I knew how to proceed. Why, 
you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things 
is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire. I 
laid a plan, and gathered a list of names. My pro- 
ject was to corrupt Hadleyburg the Incorruptible, 
My idea was to make liars and thieves of nearly 
half a hundred smirchless men and women who had 
never in their lives uttered a lie or stolen a penny. 
I was afraid of Goodson. He was neither born nor 
reared in Hadleyburg. I was afraid that if I started 
to operate my scheme by getting my letter laid be- 
fore you, you would say to yourselves, ‘‘ Goodson 
is the only man among us who would give away 
twenty dollars to a poor devil ’ ’ — and then you 
might not bite at my bait. But Heaven took Good- 
son ; then I knew I was safe, and I set my trap and 
baited it. It may be that I shall not catch all the 
men to whom I mailed the pretended test secret, but 
I shall catch the most of them, if I know Hadley- 


128 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


burg nature. [ Voices. “ Right — he got every last 
one of them.”] I believe they will even steal osten- 
sible ^^;;/^/^-money, rather than miss, poor, tempted, 
and mistrained fellows. I am hoping to eternally 
and everlastingly squelch your vanity and give Had- 
leyburg a new renown — one that will stick — and 
spread far. If I have succeeded, open the sack and 
summon the Committee on Propagation and Preser- 
vation of the Hadleyburg Reputation.’ ” 

A Cyclone of Voices, ‘ ‘ Open it ! Open it ! The 
Eighteen to the front ! Committee on Propagation 
of the Tradition ! Forward — the Incorruptibles ! ” 
The Chair ripped the sack wide, and gathered up 
a handful of bright, broad, yellow coins, shook them 
together, then examined them — 

” Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead ! ” 
There was a crashing outbreak of delight over this 
news, and when the noise had subsided, the tanner 
called out: 

‘‘ By right of apparent seniority in this business, 
Mr. Wilson is Chairman of the Committee on Prop- 
agation of the Tradition. I sugges.t that he step for- 
ward on behalf of his pals, and receive in trust the 
money.” 

A Hundred Voices. ‘ ‘ Wilson ! Wilson ! Wilson ! 
Speech ! Speech ! ’ ’ 

Wilson \in a voice trembling with anger.'] “You 
will allow me to say, and without apologies for my 
language, damn the money! ” 

A Voice. ‘‘ Oh, and him a Baptist! ” 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 129 


A Voice. “Seventeen Symbols left! Step up, 
gentlemen, and assume your trust! “ 

There was a pause — no response. 

The Saddler. “ Mr. Chairman, we’ve got one 
clean man left, anyway, out of the late aristocracy; 
and he needs money, and deserves it. I move that 
you appoint Jack Halliday to get up there and 
auction off that sack of gilt twenty-dollar pieces, and 
give the result to the right man — the man whom 
Hadleyburg delights to honor — Edward Richards.” 

This was received with great enthusiasm, the dog 
taking a hand again ; the saddler started the bids at 
a dollar, the Brixton folk and Barnum's representa- 
tive fought hard for it, the people cheered every 
jump that the bids made, the excitement climbed 
moment by moment higher and higher, the bidders 
got on their mettle and grew steadily more and more 
daring, more and more determined, the jumps went 
from a dollar up to five, then to ten, then to twenty, 
then fifty, then to a hundred, then — 

At the beginning of the auction Richards whis- 
pered in distress to his wife: “O Mary, can we 
allow it? It — it — you see, it is an honor-reward, a 
testimonial to purity of character, and — and — can 
we allow it? Hadn’t I better get up and — O 
Mary, what ought we to do ? — what do you think 
we — \_Halliday s voice. Fifteen Vm bid! — fif- 
teen for the sack ! — twenty ! — ah, thanks ! — thirty 
— thanks again ! Thirty y thirty y thirty ! — do I hear 
forty f — forty it is I Keep the ball rollingy gentle- 


130 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


mefiy keep it rolling ! — fifty ! — thanks y noble Roman ! 
going at fifty y fifty y fifty ! — seventy ! — ninety ! — 
splendid! — a hundred! — pile it up y pile it up! — 
hundred and twenty — forty ! — just in time ! — hun- 
dred and fifty ! — t\vo hundred ! — superb ! Do I 
hear two h — thanks ! — two hundred and fifty ! — ”] 

‘‘It is another temptation, Edward — I’m all in a 
tremble — but, oh, we’ve escaped one temptation, 
and that ought to warn us to — Six did I hear ? 

— thanks! — six fifty y six f— hundred 
And yet, Edward, when you think — nobody susp — 

Eight hundred dollars ! — hurrah! — make tt nine ! 

— Mr. P arsons y did I hear yotc say — thanks — nine ! 

— this noble sack of virgin lead going at only nine 
hundred dollars y gilding and all — come ! do I hear — 
a thousand ! — gratefully yours ! — did some one say 
eleven f — a sack which is going to be the most cele- 
brated in the whole Uni — ”] O Edward” (begin- 
ning to sob) , ‘ ‘ we are so poor ! — but — but — do as 
you think best — do as you think best.” 

Edward fell — that is, he sat still; sat with a con- 
science which was not satisfied, but which was over- 
powered by circumstances. 

Meantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur 
detective gotten up as an impossible English earl, 
had been watching the evening’s proceedings with 
manifest interest, and with a contented expression 
in his face ; and he had been privately commenting 
to himself. He was now soliloquizing somewhat 
like this: “None of the Eighteen are bidding; 


131 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

that is not satisfactory; I must change that — the 
dramatic unities require it ; they must buy the sack 
they tried to steal; they must pay a heavy price, 
too — some of them are rich. And another thing, 
when I make a mistake in Hadleyburg nature the 
man that puts that error upon me is entitled to a 
high honorarium, and some one must pay it. This 
poor old Richards has brought my judgment to 
shame; he is an honest man: — I don’t understand 
it, but I acknowledge it. Yes, he saw my deuces 
and with a straight flush, and by rights the pot is his. 
And it shall be a jack-pot, too, if I can manage it. 
He disappointed me, but let that pass.” 

He was watching the bidding. At a thousand, 
the market broke; the prices tumbled swiftly. He 
waited — and still watched. One competitor dropped 
out; then another, and another. He put in a bid 
or two, now. When the bids had sunk to ten dol- 
lars, he added a five ; some one raised him a three ; 
he waited a moment, then flung in a fifty-dollar 
jump, and the sack was his — at $1,282. The 
house broke out in cheers — then stopped ; for he 
was on his feet, and had lifted his hand. He began 
to speak. 

” I desire to say a word, and ask a favor. I am a 
speculator in rarities, and I have dealings with per- 
sons interested in numismatics all over the world. I 
can make a profit on this purchase, just as it stands ; 
but there is a way, if I can get your approval, 
whereby I can make every one of these leaden 


132 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


twenty-dollar pieces worth its face in gold, and per- 
haps more. Grant me that approval, and I will give 
part of my gains to your Mr. Richards, whose in- 
vulnerable probity you have so justly and so cordially 
recognized to-night; his share shall be ten thousand 
dollars, and I will hand him the money to-morrow. 
\^Great applause from the house. But the “ invulner- 
able probity ’ ’ made the Richardses blush prettily ; 
however, it went for modesty, and did no harm.] 
If you will pass my proposition by a good majority 
— I would like a two-thirds vote — I will regard that 
as the town’s consent, and that is all I ask. Rarities 
are always helped by any device which will rouse 
curiosity and compel remark. Now if I may have 
your permission to stamp upon the faces of each of 
these ostensible coins the names of the eighteen gen- 
tlemen who — ’ ’ 

Nine-tenths of the audience were on their feet in 
a moment — dog and all — and the proposition was 
carried with a whirlwind of approving applause and 
laughter. 

They sat down, and all the Symbols except “ Dr.” 
Clay Harkness got up, violently protesting against 
the proposed outrage, and threatening to — 

” I beg you not to threaten me,” said the stranger, 
calmly. ‘‘ I know my legal rights, and am not ac- 
customed to being frightened at bluster. ’ ’ \^Applausel\ 
He sat down. ” Dr.” Harkness saw an opportunity 
here. He was one of the two very rich men of the 
place, and Pinkerton was the other. Harkness was 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 135 

proprietor of a mint ; that is to say, a popular patent 
medicine. He was running for the Legislature on 
one ticket, and Pinkerton on the other. It was a 
close race and a hot one, and getting hotter every 
day. Both had strong appetites for money; each 
had bought a great tract of land, with a purpose; 
there was going to be a new railway, and each 
wanted to be in the Legislature and help locate the 
route to his own advantage; a single vote might 
make the decision, and with it two or three fortunes. 
The stake was large, and Harkness was a daring 
speculator. He was sitting close to the stranger. 
He leaned over while one or another of the other 
Symbols was entertaining the house with protests 
and appeals, and asked, in a whisper, 

“ What is your price for the sack? ** 

“ Forty thousand dollars.’' 

“I’ll give you twenty.’’ 

“No.” 

“ Twenty-five.’’ 

“No.’’ 

“ Say thirty.’’ 

‘ ‘ The price is forty thousand dollars ; not a penny 
less.’’ 

“ All right. I’ll give it. I will come to the hotel 
at ten in the morning. I don’t want it known; will 
see you privately.’’ 

“Very good.’’ Then the stranger got up and 
said to the house : 

“ I find it late. The speeches of these gentlemen 
9 


134 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


are not without merit, not without interest, not with- 
out grace ; yet if I may be excused I will take my 
leave. I thank you for the great favor which you 
have shown me in granting my petition. I ask the 
Chair to keep the sack for me until to-morrow, and 
to hand these three five-hundred-dollar notes to Mr. 
Richards.” They were passed up to the Chair. 

‘ ‘ At nine I will call for the sack, and at eleven will 
deliver the rest of the ten thousand to Mr. Richards 
in person, at his home. Good night.” 

Then he slipped out, and left the audience making 
a vast noise, which was composed of a mixture of 
cheers, the “Mikado” song, dog-disapproval, and 
the chant, “ You are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-d man 
— a-a-a a-men ! ’ ’ 

IV 

At home the Richardses had to endure congratu- 
lations and compliments until midnight. Then they 
were left to themselves. They looked a little sad, 
and they sat silent and thinking. Finally Mary 
sighed and said, 

“ Do you think we are to blame, Edward — much 
to blame ? ’ ’ and her eyes wandered to the accusing 
triplet of big bank notes lying on the table, where 
the congratulators had been gloating over them and 
reverently fingering them. Edward did not answer 
at once; then he brought out a sigh and said, 
hesitatingly : 

“We — we couldn’t help it, Mary. It — well, it 
was ordered. All things are.” 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 135 

Mary glanced up and looked at him steadily, but 
he didn’t return the look. Presently she said: 

“ I thought congratulations and praises always 
tasted good. But — it seems to me, now — 
Edward ? ’ ’ 

“Well?” 

“ Are you going to stay in the bank? ” 

“N-no.” 

‘ ‘ Resign ? ’ ’ 

“ In the morning — by note.” 

“ It does seem best.” 

Richards bowed his head in his hands and 
muttered : 

‘ ‘ Before, I was not afraid to let oceans of peo- 
ple’s money pour through my hands, but — Mary, 
I am so tired, so tired — ” 

“We will go to bed.” 

At nine in the morning the stranger called for the 
sack and took it to the hotel in a cab. At ten Hark- 
ness had a talk with him privately. The stranger 
asked for and got five checks on a metropolitan bank 
— drawn to “ Bearer,” — four for $1,500 each, and 
one for $34,000. He put one of the former in his 
pocketbook, and the remainder, representing $38,- 
500, he put in an envelope, and with these he added 
a note, which he wrote after Harkness was gone. 
At eleven he called at the Richards house and 
knocked. Mrs. Richards peeped through the shut- 
ters, then went and received the envelope, and the 
stranger disappeared without a word. She came 


136 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


back flushed and a little unsteady on her legs, and 
gasped out: 

‘ ‘ I am sure I recognized him ! Last night it 
seemed to me that maybe I had seen him some- 
where before.” 

‘ ‘ He is the man that brought the sack here ? ’ ’ 

‘‘ I am almost sure of it.” 

‘‘Then he is the ostensible Stephenson, too, and 
sold every important citizen in this town with his 
bogus secret. Now if he has sent checks instead of 
money, we are sold, too, after we thought we had 
escaped. I was beginning to feel fairly comfortable 
once more, after my night’s rest, but the look of 
that envelope makes me sick. It isn’t fat enough; 
$8,500 in even the largest bank notes makes more 
bulk than that.” 

‘‘ Edward, why do you object to checks? ” 

‘ ‘ Checks signed by Stephenson ! I am resigned 
to take the $8,500 if it could come in bank 
notes — for it does seem that it was so ordered, 
Mary — but I have never had much courage, and I 
have not the pluck to try to market a check signed 
with that disastrous name. It would be a trap. 
That man tried to catch me ; we escaped somehow 
or other; and now he is trying a new way. If it is 
checks — ’ ’ 

‘‘Oh, Edward, it is too bad! ” and she held up 
the checks and began to cry. 

‘‘Put them in the fire! quick! we mustn’t be 
tempted. It is a trick to make the world laugh at 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 13 7 

us, along with the rest, and — Give them to me, 
since you can’t do it!” He snatched them and 
tried to hold his grip till he could get to the stove ; 
but he was human, he was a cashier, and he stopped 
a moment to make sure of the signature. Then he 
came near to fainting. 

” Fan me, Mary, fan me ! They are the same as 
gold! ” 

” Oh, how lovely, Edward ! Why? ” 

” Signed by Harkness. What can the mystery of 
that be, Mary? ” 

” Edward, do you think — ” 

‘ ‘ Look here — look at this ! Fifteen — fifteen — 
fifteen — thirty-four. Thirty-eight thousand five 
hundred ! Mary, the sack isn’t worth twelve dol- 
lars, and Harkness — apparently — has paid about 
par for it.” 

‘‘ And does it all come to us, do you think — in- 
stead of the ten thousand ? ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Why, it looks like it. And the checks are made 
to ‘ Bearer,’ too.” 

” Is that good, Edward? What is it for? ” 

‘ ‘ A hint to collect them at some distant bank, I 
reckon. Perhaps Harkness doesn’t want the matter 
known. What is that — a note ? ’ ’ 

‘‘Yes. It was with the checks.” 

It was in the ‘‘Stephenson” handwriting, but 
there was no signature. It said : 


“ / am a disappointed man. Your honesty is beyond the reach of 
temptation. I had a different idea about it, but I wronged you in that. 


138 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


and I beg pardon^ and do it sincerely. I honor you — and that is 
sincere too. This town is not worthy to kiss the hem of your garment. 
Dear sir, I made a square bet with myself that there were nineteen 
debauchable men in your self-righteous community. I have lost. Take 
the whole pot, you are entitled to it. ” 

Richards drew a deep sigh, and said : 

“ It seems written with fire — it burns so. Mary 

— I am miserable again.” 

” I, too. Ah, dear, I wish — ” 

” To think, Mary — he believes in me.” 

” Oh, don’t, Edward — I can’t bear it.” 

‘‘If those beautiful words were deserved, Mary 

— and God knows I believed I deserved them once 

— I think I could give the forty thousand dollars for 
them. And I would put that paper away, as repre- 
senting more than gold and jewels, and keep it 
always. But now — We could not live in the 
shadow of its accusing presence, Mary.” 

He put it in the fire. 

A messenger arrived and delivered an envelope. 
Richards took from it a note and read it ; it was 
from Burgess. 

“ Yoti saved me, in a difficult time. I saved you last night. It 
was at cost of a lie, but I made the sacrifice freely, and out of a grate- 
ful heart. None in this village knows so well as I know how brave 
and good and noble you are. At botto?n you cannot respect me, know- 
ing as you do of that matter of which I a7n accused, and by the general 
voice condemned ; but I beg that you will at least believe that I am a 
grateful man ; it will help me to bear my burden. 

[ Signed'^ ‘ ‘ Burgess . ’ ’ 


‘‘ Saved, once more. And on such terms ! ” He 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 139 

put the note in the fire. “I — I wish I were dead, 
Mary, I wish I were out of it all.” 

” Oh, these are bitter, bitter days, Edward. The 
stabs, through their very generosity, are so deep — 
and they come so fast !” 

Three days before the election each of two thou- 
sand voters suddenly found himself in possession of 
a prized memento — one of the renowned bogus 
double-eagles. Around one of its faces was stamped 
these words : ‘ ‘ THE REMARK I MADE TO THE POOR 
STRANGER WAS — ” Around the other face was 
stamped these: “GO, and reform. [signed] 
PINKERTON.” Thus the entire remaining refuse of 
the renowned joke was emptied upon a single head, 
and with calamitous effect. It revived the recent 
vast laugh and concentrated it upon Pinkerton ; and 
Harkness’s election was a walkover. 

Within twenty-four hours after the Richardses had 
received their checks their consciences were quieting 
down, discouraged ; the old couple were learning to 
reconcile themselves to the sin which they had com- 
mitted. But they were to learn, now, that a sin 
takes on new and real terrors when there seems a 
chance that it is going to be found out. This gives 
it a fresh and most substantial and important aspect. 
At church the morning sermon was of the usual 
pattern ; it was the same old things said in the same 
old way ; they had heard them a thousand times and 
found them innocuous, next to meaningless, and 
easy to sleep under ; but now it was different : the 


140 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


sermon seemed to bristle with accusations ; it seemed 
aimed straight and specially at people who were con- 
cealing deadly sins. After church they got away 
from the mob of congratulators as soon as they 
could, and hurried homeward, chilled to the bone at 
they did not know what — vague, shadowy, indefi- 
nite fears. And by chance they caught a glimpse of 
Mr. Burgess as he turned a corner. He paid no 
attention to their nod of recognition ! He hadn’t 
seen it; but they did not know that. What could 
his conduct mean? It might mean — it might mean 
— oh, a dozen dreadful things. Was it possible that 
he knew that Richards could have cleared him of 
guilt in that bygone time, and had been silently 
waiting for a chance to even up accounts ? At 
home, in their distress they got to imagining that 
their servant might have been in the next room 
listening when Richards revealed the secret to his 
wife that he knew of Burgess’s innocence; next, 
Richards began to imagine that he had heard the 
swish of a gown in there at that time ; next, he was 
sure he had heard it. They would call Sarah in, on 
a pretext, and watch her face : if she had been be- 
traying them to Mr. Burgess, it would show in her 
manner. They asked her some questions — ques- 
tions which were so random and incoherent and 
seemingly purposeless that the girl felt sure that the 
old people’s minds had been affected by their sudden 
good fortune; the sharp and watchful gaze which 
they bent upon her frightened her, and that com- 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 141 

pie ted the business. She blushed, she became 
nervous and confused, and to the old people these 
were plain signs of guilt — guilt of some fearful sort 
or other — without doubt she was a spy and a traitor. 
When they were alone again they began to piece 
many unrelated things together and get horrible re- 
sults out of the combination. When things had got 
about to the worst, Richards was delivered of a sud- 
den gasp, and his wife asked, 

“ Oh, what is it? — what is it?” 

‘‘The note — Burgess’s note! Its language was 
sarcastic, I see it now.” He quoted: ‘‘‘At bot- 
tom you cannot respect me, knowings as you do, of 
that matter of which I am accused ’ — oh, it is per- 
fectly plain, now, God help me I He knows that I 
know! You see the ingenuity of the phrasing. It 
was a trap — and like a fool, I walked into it. And 
Mary — ?” 

‘‘ Oh, it is dreadful — I know what you are going 
to say — he didn’t return your transcript of the pre- 
tended test-remark.” 

‘‘ No — kept it to destroy us with. Mary, he has 
exposed us to some already. I know it — I know it 
well. I saw it in a dozen faces after church. Ah, 
he wouldn’t answer our nod of recognition — he 
knew what he had been doing ! ’ ’ 

In the night the doctor was called. The news 
went around in the morning that the old couple were 
rather seriously ill — prostrated by the exhausting 
excitement growing out of their great windfall, the 


142 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


congratulations, and the late hours, the doctor said. 
The town was sincerely distressed; for these old 
people were about all it had left to be proud of, 
now. 

Two days later the news was worse. The old 
couple were delirious, and were doing strange things. 
By witness of the nurses, Richards had exhibited 
checks— for $8,500? No — for an amazing sum 
— $38,500 ! What could be the explanation of this 
gigantic piece of luck? 

The following day the nurses had more news — 
and wonderful. They had concluded to hide the 
checks, lest harm come to them; but when they 
searched they were gone from under the patient’s 
pillow — vanished away. The patient said : 

“ Let the pillow alone; what do you want? ” 

“ We thought it best that the checks — ” 

“You will never see them again — they are de- 
stroyed. They came from Satan. I saw the hell- 
brand on them, and I knew they were sent to betray 
me to sin.’’ Then he fell to gabbling strange and 
dreadful things which were not clearly understand- 
able, and which the doctor admonished them to keep 
to themselves. 

Richards was right; the checks were never seen 
again. 

A nurse must have talked in her sleep, for within 
two days the forbidden gabblings were the property 
of the town; and they were of a surprising sort. 
They seemed to indicate that Richards had been a 


143 


The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 

claimant for the sack himself, and that Burgess had 
concealed that fact and then maliciously betrayed it. 

Burgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it. 
And he said it was not fair to attach weight to the 
chatter of a sick old man who was out of his mind. 
Still, suspicion was in the air, and there was much 
talk. 

After a day or two it was reported that Mrs. 
Richards’s delirious deliveries were getting to be 
duplicates of her husband’s. Suspicion flamed up 
into conviction, now, and the town’s pride in the 
purity of its one undiscredited important citizen be- 
gan to dim down and flicker toward extinction. 

Six days passed, then came more news. The old 
couple were dying. Richards’s mind cleared in his 
latest hour, and he sent for Burgess. Burgess said : 

“ Let the room be cleared. I think he wishes to 
say something in privacy.” 

“No!” said Richards: ‘‘I want witnesses. I 
want you all to hear my confession, so that I may 
die a man, and not a dog. J_\Yas clean — artificially 
— like the rest ; and like the rest I fell when tempta- 
tion came. I signed a lie, and claimed the miserable 
sack. Mr. Burgess remembered that I had done 
him a service, and in gratitude (and ignorance) he 
suppressed my claim and saved me. You know the 
thing that was charged against Burgess years ago. 
My testimony, and mine alone, could have cleared 
him, and I was a coward, and left him to suffer 
disgrace — ’ ’ 


144 The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg 


“No — no — Mr. Richards, you — ” 

‘ ‘ My servant betrayed my secret to him — * * 

‘ ‘ No one has betrayed anything to me — ’ * 

— “ and then he did a natural and justifiable thing, 
he repented of the saving kindness which he had 
done me, and he exposed me — as I deserved — 

‘ ‘ Never ! — I make oath — ^ ’ 

“ Out of my heart I forgive him.” 

Burgess’s impassioned protestations fell upon deaf 
ears ; the dying man passed away without knowing 
that once more he had done poor Burgess a wrong. 
The old wife died that night. 

The last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey 
to the fiendish sack; the town was stripped of the 
last rag of its ancient glory. Its mourning was not 
showy, but it was deep. 

By act of the Legislature — upon prayer and peti- 
tion — Hadleyburg was allowed to change its name 
to (never mind what — I will not give it away), and 
leave one word out of the motto that for many gen- 
erations had graced the town’s official seal. 

It is an honest town once more, and the man will 
have to rise early that catches it napping again. 



MY FIRST LIE, AND HOW I GOT OUT 
OF IT 

A S I understand it, what you desire is information 
about “ my first lie, and how I got out of it.” 
I was born in 1835; I well along, and my 
memory is not as good as it was. If you had asked 
about my first truth it would have been easier for 
me and kinder of you, for I remember that fairly 
well; I remember it as if it were last week. The 
family think it was week before, but that is flattery 
and probably has a selfish project back of it. When 
a person has become seasoned by experience and 
has reached the age of sixty-four, which is the age 
of discretion, he likes a family compliment as well 
as ever, but he does not lose his head over it as in 
the old innocent days. 

I do not remember my first lie, it is too far back; 
but I remember my second one very well. I was 
nine days old at the time, and had noticed that if a 
pin was sticking in me and I advertised it in the 
usual fashion, I was lovingly petted and coddled and 
pitied in a most agreeable way and got a ration be- 
tween meals besides. It was human nature to want 

( 145 ) 


146 My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 


to get these riches, and I fell. I lied about the pin 
— advertising one when there wasn’t any. You 
would have done it; George Washington did it; 
anybody would have done it. During the first half 
of my life I never knew a child that was able to rise 
above that temptation and keep from telling that lie. 
Up to 1867 all the civilized children that were ever 
born into the world were liars — including George. 
Then the safety-pin came in and blocked the game. 
But is that reform worth anything? No; for it is 
reform by force and has no virtue in it ; it merely 
stops that form of lying; it doesn’t impair the dis- 
position to lie, by a shade. It is the cradle applica- 
tion of conversion by fire and sword, or of the tem- 
perance principle through prohibition. 

To return to that early lie. They found no pin, 
and they realized that another liar had been added 
to the world’s supply. For by grace of a rare in- 
spiration, a quite commonplace but seldom noticed 
fact was borne in upon their understandings — that 
almost all lies are acts, and speech has no part in 
them. Then, if they examined a little further they 
recognized that all people are liars from the cradle 
onward, without exception, and that they begin to 
lie as soon as they wake in the morning, and keep it 
up, without rest or refreshment, until they go to 
sleep at night. If they arrived at that truth it prob- 
ably grieved them — did, if they had been heedlessly 
and ignorantly educated by their books and teachers ; 
for why should a person grieve over a thing which 


My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 147 

by the eternal law of his make he cannot help ? He 
didn’t invent the law; it is merely his business to 
obey it and keep still ; join the universal conspiracy 
and keep so still that he shall deceive his fellow-con- 
spirators into imagining that he doesn’t know that 
the law exists. It is what we all do — we that know. 
I am speaking of the lie of silent assertion ; we can 
tell it without saying a word, and we all do it — we 
that know. In the magnitude of its territorial spread 
it is one of the most majestic lies that the civiliza- 
tions make it their sacred and anxious care to guard 
and watch and propagate. 

For instance: It would not be possible for a 
humane and intelligent person to invent a rational 
excuse for slavery; yet you will remember that in 
the early days of the emancipation agitation in the 
North, the agitators got but small help or counte- 
nance from any one. Argue and plead and pray as 
they might, they could not break the universal still- 
ness that reigned, from pulpit and press all the way 
down to the bottom of society — the clammy still- 
ness created and maintained by the lie of silent asser- 
tion — the silent assertion that there wasn’t anything 
going on in which humane and intelligent people 
were interested. 

From the beginning of the Dreyfus case to the end 
of it, all France, except a couple of dozen moral 
paladins, lay under the smother of the silent-asser- 
tion lie that no wrong was being done to a perse- 
cuted and unoffending man. The like smothe*: 


148 My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 


was over England lately, a good half of the popula- 
tion silently letting on that they were not aware 
that Mr. Chamberlain was trying to manufacture a 
war in South Africa and was willing to pay fancy 
prices for the materials. 

Now there we have instances of three prominent 
ostensible civilizations working the silent-assertion 
lie. Could one find other instances in the three 
countries? I think so. Not so very many, per- 
haps, but say a billion — just so as to keep within 
bounds. Are those countries working that kind of 
lie, day in and day out, in thousands and thousands 
of varieties, without ever resting? Yes, we know that 
to be true. The universal conspiracy of the silent- 
assertion lie is hard at work always and everywhere, 
and always in the interest of a stupidity or a sham, 
never in the interest of a thing fine or respectable. 
Is it the most timid and shabby of all lies? It 
seems to have the look of it. For ages and ages it 
has mutely labored in the interest of despotisms and 
aristocracies and chattel slaveries, and military 
slaveries, and religious slaveries, and has kept them 
alive; keeps them alive yet, here and there and 
yonder, all about the globe ; and will go on keeping 
them alive until the silent-assertion lie retires from 
business — the silent assertion that nothing is going 
on which fair and intelligent men are aware of and 
are engaged by their duty to try to stop. 

What I am arriving at is this : When whole races 
and peoples conspire to propagate gigantic mute lies 


My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 149 


in the interest of tyrannies and shams, why should 
we care anything about the trifling lies told by in- 
dividuals? Why should we try to make it appear 
that abstention from lying is a virtue? Why should 
we want to beguile ourselves in that way? Why 
should we without shame help the nation lie, and 
then be ashamed to do a little lying on our own 
account? Why shouldn’t we be honest and honor- 
able, and lie every time we get a chance? That is 
to say, why shouldn’t we be consistent, and either 
lie all the time or not at all? Why should we help 
the nation lie the whole day long and then object to 
telling one little individual private lie in our own 
interest to go to bed on? Just for the refreshment 
of it, I mean, and to take the rancid taste out of our 
mouth. 

Here in England they have the oddest ways. 
They won’t tell a spoken lie — nothing can persuade 
them. Except in a large moral interest, like politics 
or religion, I mean. To tell a spoken lie to get 
even the poorest little personal advantage out of it is 
a thing which is impossible to them. They make 
me ashamed of myself sometimes, they are so 
bigoted. They will not even tell a lie for the fun of 
it; they will not tell it when it hasn’t even a sugges- 
tion of damage or advantage in it for any one. This 
has a restraining influence upon me in spite of 
reason, and I am always getting out of practice. 

Of course, they tell all sorts of little unspoken lies, 
just like anybody; but they don’t notice it until their 
10 


150 My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 


attention is called to it. They have got me so that 
sometimes I never tell a verbal lie now except in a 
modified form ; and even in the modified form they 
don’t approve of it. Still, that is as far as I can go 
in the interest of the growing friendly relations 
between the two countries ; I must keep some of my 
self-respect — and my health. I can live on a low 
diet, but I can’t get along on no sustenance at all. 

Of course, there are times when these people have 
to come out with a spoken lie, for that is a thing 
which happens to everybody once in a while, and 
would happen to the angels if they came down here 
much. Particularly to the angels, in fact, for the 
lies I speak of are self-sacrificing ones told for a gen- 
erous object, not a mean one ; but even when these 
people tell a lie of that sort it seems to scare them 
and unsettle their minds. It is a wonderful thing to 
see, and shows that they are all insane. In fact, it 
is a country full of the most interesting superstitions. 

I have an English friend of twenty-five years’ 
standing, and yesterday when we were coming down- 
town on top of the ’bus I happened to tell him a lie 
— a modified one, of course; a half-breed, a 
mulatto: I can’t seem to tell any other kind now, 
the market is so flat. I was explaining to him how 
I got out of an embarrassment in Austria last year. 
I do not know what might have become of me if I 
hadn’t happened to remember to tell the police that 
I belonged to the same family as the Prince of 
Wales. That made everything pleasant and they let 


My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 151 


me go; and apologized, too, and were ever so kind 
and obliging and polite, and couldn’t do too much 
for me, and explained how the mistake came to be 
made, and promised to hang the officer that did it, 
and hoped I would let bygones be bygones and not 
say anything about it ; and I said they could depend 
on me. My friend said, austerely: 

“You call it a modified lie? Where is the 
modification? “ 

I explained that it lay in the form of my state- 
ment to the police. 

“ I didn’t say I belonged to the royal family: I 
only said I belonged to the same family as the Prince 
— meaning the human family, of course; and if 
those people had had any penetration they would 
have known it. I can’t go around furnishing brains 
to the police; it is not to be expected.” 

‘ ‘ How did you feel after that performance ? ’ ’ 

“ Well, of course I was distressed to find that the 
police had misunderstood me, but as long as I had 
not told any lie I knew there was no occasion to sit 
up nights and worry about it.” 

My friend struggled with the case several minutes, 
turning it over and examining it in his mind ; then he 
said that so far as he could see the modification was 
itself a lie, being a misleading reservation of an ex- 
planatory fact; so I had told two lies instead of one. 

“I wouldn’t have done it,” said he: “I have 
never told a lie, and I should be very sorry to do 
such a thing.” 

j 


152 My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 

Just then he lifted his hat and smiled a basketful 
of surprised and delighted smiles down at a gentle- 
man who was passing in a hansom. 

“Who was that, G ?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“ Then why did you do that? ” 

‘ ‘ Because I saw he thought he knew me and was 
expecting it of me. If I hadn’t done it he would 
have been hurt. I didn’t want to embarrass him 
before the whole street.” 

“Well, your heart was right, G , and your 

act was right. What you did was kindly and 
courteous and beautiful ; I would have done it 
myself : but it was a lie.” 

“A lie? I didn’t say a word. How do you 
make it out? ” 

“ I know you didn’t speak, still you said to him 
very plainly and enthusiastically in dumb show, 

‘ Hello! you in town? Awful glad to see you, old 
fellow; when did you get back?’ Concealed in 
your actions was what you have called ‘ a misleading 
reservation of an explanatory fact ’ — the fact that 
you had never seen him before. You expressed joy 
in encountering him — a lie; and you made that 
reservation w— another lie. It was my pair over 
again. But don’t be troubled — we all do it.” 

Two hours later, at dinner, when quite other mat- 
ters were being discussed, he told how he happened 
along once just in the nick of time to do a great serv- 
ice for a family who were old friends of his. The 


My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 153 

head of it had suddenly died in circumstances and 
surroundings of a ruinously disgraceful character. 
If known, the facts would break the hearts of the 
innocent family and put upon them a load of unen- 
durable shame. There was no help but in a giant 
lie, and he girded up his loins and told it. 

“ The family never found out, G ? ” 

“ Never. In all these years they have never sus- 
pected. They were proud of him, and always had 
reason to be ; they are proud of him yet, and to them 
his memory is sacred and stainless and beautiful.” 

” They had a narrow escape, G .” 

” Indeed they had.” 

” For the very next man that came along might 
have been one of these heartless and shameless truth- 
mongers. You have told the truth a million times 

in your life, G , but that one golden lie atones 

for it all. Persevere.” 

Some may think me not strict enough in my 
morals, but that position is hardly tenable. There 
are many kinds of lying which I do not approve. 
I do not like an injurious lie, except when it injures 
somebody else; and I do not like the lie of bravado, 
nor the lie of virtuous ecstasy : the latter was affected 
by Bryant, the former by Carlyle. 

Mr. Bryant said, “Truth crushed to earth will 
rise again.” 

I have taken medals at thirteen world’s fairs, and 
may claim to be not without capacity, but I never 
told as big a one as that which Mr. Bryant was play- 


154 My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 


ing to the gallery; we all do it. Carlyle said, in 
substance, this — I do not remember the exact 
words : ‘ ‘ This gospel is eternal — that a lie shall 
not live.’^ 

I have a reverent affection for Carlyle’s books, 
and have read his Revolution eight times ; and so I 
prefer to think he was not entirely at himself when 
he told that one. To me it is plain that he said it in 
a moment of excitement, when chasing Americans 
out of his back-yard with brickbats. They used to 
go there and worship. At bottom he was probably 
fond of them, but he was always able to conceal it. 
He kept bricks for them, but he was not a good 
shot, and it is matter of history that when he fired 
they dodged, and carried off the brick; for as a 
nation we like relics, and so long as we get them we 
do not much care what the reliquary thinks about it. 
I am quite sure that when he told that large one 
about a lie not being able to live, he had just missed 
an American and was over-excited. He told it above 
thirty years ago, but it is alive yet; alive, and very 
healthy and hearty, and likely to outlive any fact in 
history. Carlyle was truthful when calm, but give 
him Americans enough and bricks enough and he 
could have taken medals himself. 

As regards that time that George Washington told 
the truth, a word must be said, of course. It is the 
principal jewel in the crown of America, and it is 
but natural that we should work it for all it is 
worth, as Milton says in his “ Lay of the Last Min- 


My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 155 


strel.” It was a timely and judicious truth, and I 
should have told it myself in the circumstances. 
But I should have stopped there. It was a stately 
truth, a lofty truth — a Tower; and I think it was a 
mistake to go on and distract attention from its sub- 
limity by building another Tower alongside of it 
fourteen times as high. I refer to his remark that 
he “ could not lie.” I should have fed that to the 
marines : or left it to Carlyle ; it is just in his style. 
It would have taken a medal at any European fair, 
and would have got an Honorable Mention even at 
Chicago if it had been saved up. But let it pass: 
the Father of his Country was excited. I have been 
in those circumstances, and I recollect. 

With the truth he told I have no objection to 
offer, as already indicated. I think it was not pre- 
meditated, but an inspiration. With his fine mili- 
tary mind, he had probably arranged to let his 
brother Edward in for the cherry-tree results, but 
by an inspiration he saw his opportunity in time and 
took advantage of it. By telling the truth he could 
astonish his father ; his father would tell the neigh- 
bors ; the neighbors would spread it ; it would travel 
to all firesides ; in the end it would make him Presi- 
dent, and not only that, but First President. He 
was a far-seeing boy and would be likely to think of 
these things. Therefore, to my mind, he stands 
justified for what he did. But not for the other 
Tower: it was a mistake. Still, I don’t know about 
that; upon reflection I think perhaps it wasn’t. For 


156 My First Lie, and How I Got Out of It 


indeed it is that Tower that makes the other one live. 
If he hadn’t said “ I cannot tell a lie,” there would 
have been no convulsion. That was the earthquake 
that rocked the planet. That is the kind of state- 
ment that lives forever, and a fact barnacled to it 
has a good chance to share its immortality. 

To sum up, on the whole I am satisfied with 
things the way they are. There is a prejudice 
against the spoken lie, but none against any other, 
and by examination and mathematical computation 
I find that the proportion of the spoken lie to the 
other varieties is as i to 22,894. Therefore the 
spoken lie is of no consequence, and it is not worth 
while to go around fussing about it and trying to 
make believe that it is an important matter. The 
silent colossal National Lie that is the support and 
confederate of all the tyrannies and shams and in- 
equalities and unfairnesses that afflict the peoples — 
that is the one to throw bricks and sermons at. But 
let us be judicious and let somebody else begin. 

And then — But I have wandered from my text. 
How did I get out of my second lie? I think I got 
out with honor, but I cannot be sure, for it was a 
long time ago and some of the details have faded 
out of my memory. I recollect that I was reversed 
and stretched across some one’s knee, and that 
something happened, but I cannot now remember 
what it was. I think there was music; but it is all 
dim now and blurred by the lapse of time,, and this 
may be only a senile fancy. 


THE BELATED RUSSIAN PASSPORT 


One Fly Makes a Summer. — Pudd'nhead WihorCs Calendar 


I. 



GREAT beer-saloon in the Friedrichstrasse, 


Berlin, toward mid-afternoon. At a hundred 
round tables gentlemen sat smoking and drinking; 
flitting here and there and everywhere were white- 
aproned waiters bearing foaming mugs to the thirsty. 
At a table near the main entrance were grouped half 
a dozen lively young fellows — American students — 
drinking goodby to a visiting Yale youth on his 
travels, who had been spending a few days in the 
German capital. 

“ But why do you cut your tour short in the 
middle, Parrish?’* asked one of the students. “ I 
wish I had your chance. What do you want to go 
home for?” 

“Yes,” said another, “what is the idea? You 
want to explain, you know, because it looks like in- 
sanity. Homesick?” 


( 157 ) 


158 


The Belated Russian Passport 


A girlish blush rose in Parrish’s fresh young face, 
and after a little hesitation he confessed that that 
was his trouble. 

“ I was never away from home before,” he said, 
” and every day I get more and more lonesome. I 
have not seen a friend for weeks, and it’s been hor- 
rible. I meant to stick the trip through, for pride’s 
sake, but seeing you boys has finished me. It’s 
been heaven to me, and I can’t take up that com- 
panionless dreariness again. If I had company — 
but I haven’t, you know, so it’s no use. They used 
to call me Miss Nancy when I was a small chap, and 
I reckon I’m that yet — girlish and timorous, and 
all that. I ought to have been a girl ! I can’t stand 
it; I’m going home.” 

The boys rallied him good-naturedly, and said he 
was making the mistake of his life ; and one of them 
added that he ought at least to see St. Petersburg 
before turning back. 

“Don’t!” said Parrish, appealingly. “It was 
my dearest dream, and I’m throwing it away. 
Don’t say a word more on that head, for I’m made 
of water, and can’t stand out against anybody’s 
persuasion. I can't go alone; I think I should die.” 
He slapped his breast pocket, and added : ‘ ‘ Here 
is my protection against a change of mind; I’ve 
bought ticket and sleeper for Paris, and I leave to- 
night. Drink, now — this is on me — bumpers — 
this is for home I” 


The Belated Russian Passport 159 

The goodbyes were said, and Alfred Parrish was 
left to his thoughts and his loneliness. But for a 
moment only. A sturdy middle-aged man with a 
brisk and businesslike bearing, and an air of decision 
and confidence suggestive of military training, came 
bustling from the next table, and seated himself at 
Parrish’s side, and began to speak, with concen- 
trated interest and earnestness. His eyes, his face, 
his person, his whole system, seemed to exude 
energy. He was full of steam — racing pressure — 
one could almost hear his gauge-cocks sing. He ex- 
tended a frank hand, shook Parrish’s cordially, and 
said, with a most convincing air of strenuous convic- 
tion : 

“Ah, but you mustn't; really you mustn’t; it 
would be the greatest mistake; you would always 
regret it. Be persuaded, I beg you; don’t do it — 
don’t!’’ 

There was such a friendly note in it, and such a 
seeming of genuineness, that it brought a sort of up- 
lift to the youth’s despondent spirits, and a telltale 
moisture betrayed itself in his eyes, an unintentional 
confession that he was touched and grateful. The 
alert stranger noted that sign,, was quite content with 
that response, and followed up his advantage 
without waiting for a spoken one : 

“ No, don’t do it; it would be a mistake. I have 
heard everything that was said — you will pardon 
that — I was so close by that I couldn’t help it. 


160 


The Belated Russian Passport 


And it troubled me to think that you would cut 
your travels short when you really want to see St. 
Petersburg, and are right here almost in sight of it I 
Reconsider it — ah, you must reconsider it. It is 
such a short distance — it is very soon done and 
very soon over — and think what a memory it 
will be!’^ 

Then he went on and made a picture of the Rus- 
sian capital and its wonders, which made Alfred 
Parrish’s mouth water and his roused spirits cry out 
with longing. Then — 

“ Of course you must see St. Petersburg — you 
must ! Why, it will be a joy to you — a joy ! I 
know, because I know the place as familiarly as I 
know my own birthplace in America. Ten years — 
I’ve known it ten years. Ask anybody there; 
they’ll tell you ; they all know me — Major Jackson. 
The very dogs know me. Do go; oh, you must 
go; you must, indeed.” 

Alfred Parrish was quivering with eagerness now. 
He would go. His face said it as plainly as his 
tongue could have done it. Then — the old shadow 
fell, and he said, sorrowfully: 

” Oh no — no, it’s no use ; I can’t. I should die 
of the loneliness.” 

The Major said, with astonishment: “The — 
loneliness ! Why, I’m going with you !” 

It was startlingly unexpected. And not quite 
pleasant. Things were moving too rapidly. Was 


The Belated Russian Passport 161 

this a trap? Was this stranger a sharper? Whence 
all this gratuitous interest in a wandering and un- 
known lad? Then he glanced at the Major’s frank 
and winning and beaming face, and was ashamed; 
and wished he knew how to get out of this scrape 
without hurting the feelings of its contriver. But he 
was not handy in matters of diplomacy, and went at 
the difficulty with conscious awkwardness and small 
confidence. He said, with a quite overdone show of 
unselfishness : 

“Oh no, no, you are too kind; I couldn’t — I 
couldn’t allow you to put yourself to such an incon- 
venience on my — ’’ 

“ Inconvenience? None in the world, my boy; I 
was going to-night, anyway; I leave in the express 
at nine. Come ! we’ll go together. You sha’n’t 
be lonely a single minute. Come along — say the 
word ! ’ ’ 

So that excuse had failed. What to do now? 
Parrish was disheartened ; it seemed to him that no 
subteffuge which his poor invention could contrive 
would ever rescue him from these toils. Still, he 
must make another effort, and he did; and before 
he had finished his new excuse he thought he recog- 
nized that it was unanswerable : 

“Ah, but most unfortunately luck is against me, 
and it is impossible. Look at these’’ — and he 
took out his tickets and laid them on the table. 
“ I am booked through to Paris, and I couldn’t get 


23 


162 


The Belated Russian Passport 


these tickets and baggage coupons changed for St. 
Petersburg, of course, and would have to lose the 
money; and if I could afford to lose the money I 
should be rather short after I bought the new tickets 
— for there is all the cash I’ve got about me” — 
and he laid a five-hundred-mark bank-note on the 
table. 

In a moment the Major had the tickets and cou- 
pons and was on his feet, and saying, with enthu- 
siasm : 

“Good! It’s all right, and everything safe. 
They’ll change the tickets and baggage pasters for 
me; they all know me — everybody knows me. 
Sit right where you are; I’ll be back right away.” 
Then he reached for the bank-note, and added, “ I’ll 
take this along, for there will be a little extra pay 
on the new tickets, maybe ” — and the next moment 
he was flying out at the door. 


11 . 

Alfred Parrish was paralyzed. It was all so 
sudden. So sudden, so daring, so incredible, so 
impossible. His mouth was open, but his tongue 
wouldn’t work; he tried to shout “ Stop him,” 
but his lungs were empty ; he wanted to pur- 
sue, but his legs refused to do anything but 
tremble; then they gave way under him and let 


The Belated Russian Passport 


163 


him down into his chair. His throat was dry, he 
was gasping and swallowing with dismay, his head 
was in a whirl. What must he do? He did not 
know. One thing seemed plain, however — he must 
pull himself together, and try to overtake that man. 
Of course the man could not get back the ticket- 
money, but would he throw the tickets away on that 
account? No; he would certainly go to the station 
and sell them to some one at half-price ; and to-day, 
too, for they would be worthless to-morrow, by Ger- 
man custom. These reflections gave him hope and 
strength, and he rose and started. But he took only 
a couple of steps, then he felt a sudden sickness, 
and tottered back to his chair again, weak with a 
dread that his movement had been noticed — for the 
last round of beer was at his expense ; it had not 
been paid for, and he hadn’t a pfennig. He was a 
prisoner — Heaven only could know what might 
happen if he tried to leave the place. He was timid, 
scared, crushed; and he had not German enough to 
state his case and beg for help and indulgence. 

Then his thoughts began to persecute him. How 
could he have been such a fool? What possessed 
him to listen to such a manifest adventurer? And 
here comes the waiter! He buried himself in the 
newspaper — trembling. The waiter passed by. It 
filled him with thankfulness. The hands of the clock 
seemed to stand still, yet he could not keep his eyes 
from them. 


164 


The Belated Russian Passport 


Ten minutes dragged by. The waiter again I 
Again he hid behind the paper. The waiter paused 

— apparently a week — then passed on. 

Another ten minutes of misery — once more the 
waiter; this time he wiped off the table, and seemed 
to be a month at it; then paused two months, and 
went away. 

Parrish felt that he could not endure another visit ; 
he must take the chances : he must run the gauntlet ; 
he must escape. But the waiter stayed around about 
the neighborhood for five minutes — months and 
months seemingly, Parrish watching him with a 
despairing eye, and feeling the infirmities of age 
creeping upon him and his hair gradually turning 
gi-ay. 

At last the waiter wandered away — stopped at a 
table, collected a bill, wandered farther, collected 
another bill, wandered farther — Parrish’s praying 
eye riveted on him all the time, his heart thumping, 
his breath coming and going in quick little gasps of 
anxiety mixed with hope. 

The waiter stopped again to collect, and Parrish 
said to himself, it is now or never ! and started for 
the door. One step — two steps — three — four 

— he was nearing the door — five — his legs shaking 
under him — was that a swift step behind him ? — 
the thought shriveled his heart — six steps — seven, 
and he was out ! — eight — nine — ten — eleven — 
twelve — there is a pursuing step ! < — he turned the 


The Belated Russian Passport 


165 


corner , and picked up his heels to fly — a heavy 
hand fell on his shoulder, and the strength went out 
of his body ! 

It was the Major. He asked not a question, he 
showed no surprise. He said, in his breezy and ex- 
hilarating fashion : 

“ Confound those people, they delayed me; 
that’s why I was gone so long. New man in the 
ticket-office, and he didn’t know me, and wouldn’t 
make the exchange because it was irregular; so I 
had to hunt up my old friend, the great mogul — 
the station-master, you know — hi, there, cab ! cab ! 
— jump in, Parrish ! — Russian consulate, cabby, 
and let them fly ! — so, as I say, that all cost time. 
But it’s all right now, and everything straight; 
your luggage reweighed, rechecked, fare-ticket and 
sleeper changed, and I’ve got the documents for it in 
my pocket; also the change — I’ll keep it for you. 
Whoop along, cabby, whoop along; don’t let them 
go to sleep ! ’ ’ 

Poor Parrish was trying his best to get in a word 
edgeways, as the cab flew farther and farther from 
the bilked beer-hall, and now at last he succeeded, 
and wanted to return at once and pay his little bill. 

“ Oh, never mind about that,” said the Major, 
placidly; “that’s all right, they know me, every 
body knows me — I’ll square it next time I’m in 
Berlin — push along, cabby, push along — no great 
lot of time to spare, now.” 


11 


166 


The Belated Russian Passport 


They arrived at the Russian consulate, a moment 
after-hours, and hurried in. No one there but a 
clerk. The Major laid his card on the desk, and 
said, in the Russian tongue, “Now, then, if you’ll 
vis6 this young man’s passport for Petersburg as 
quickly as — ’’ 

“ But, dear sir. I’m not authorized, and the con- 
sul has just gone.’’ 

‘ ‘ Gone where ? ’ ’ 

“ Out in the country, where he lives.*' 

“ And he’ll be back — ’’ 

“ Not till morning.’’ 

“Thunder! Oh, well, look, here. I’m Major 
Jackson — he knows me, everybody knows me. 
You vis6 it yourself ; tell him Major Jackson asked 
you; it’ll be all right.’’ 

But it would be desperately and fatally irregular ; 
the clerk could not be persuaded ; he almost fainted 
at the idea. 

“ Well, then. I’ll tell you what you do,’’ said the 
Major. “ Here’s stamps and the fee — vis6 it in the 
morning, and start it along by mail.’’ 

The clerk said, dubiously, “ He — well, he may 
perhaps do it, and so — ’’ 

“May? will! He knows me — everybody 
knows me.’’ 

“ Very well,’’ said the clerk, “ I will tell him what 
you say.’’ He looked bewildered, and in a measure 
subjugated ; and added, timidly : “ But — but — you 


The Belated Russian Passport 


167 


know you will beat it to the frontier twenty-four 
hours. There are no accommodations there for so 
long a wait.*’ 

“Who’s going to wait? Not I, if the court 
knows herself.’’ 

The clerk was temporarily paralyzed, and said, 
“ Surely, sir, you don’t wish it sent to Petersburg!’’ 

‘ ‘ And why not ? ’ ’ 

“ And the owner of it tarrying at the frontier, 
twenty-five miles away? It couldn’t do him any 
good, in those circumstances.’’ 

“ Tarry — the mischief 1 Who said he was going 
to do any tarrying? “ 

“ Why, you know, of course, they’ll stop him at 
the frontier if he has no passport.’’ 

“ Indeed they won’t 1 The Chief Inspector knows 
me — everybody does. I’ll be responsible for the 
young man. You send it straight through to Peters- 
burg — Hdtel de I’Europe, care Major Jackson: tell 
the consul not to worry. I’m taking all the risks 
myself.’’ 

The clerk hesitated, then chanced one more 
appeal : 

“ You must bear in mind, sir, that the risks are 
peculiarly serious, just now. The new edict is in 
force.’’ 

“What is it?’’ 

“ Ten years in Siberia for being in Russia without 
a passport.’’ 


K 


168 


The Belated Russian Passport 


“ Mm — damnation !” He said it in English, for 
the Russian tongue is but a poor stand-by in spiritual 
emergencies. He mused a moment, then brisked 
up and resumed in Russian: “ Oh, it’s all right — 
label her St. Petersburg and let her sail ! I’ll fix it. 
They all know me there — all the authorities — 
everybody.” 


III. 

The Major turned out to be an adorable traveling 
companion, and young Parrish was charmed with 
him. His talk was sunshine and rainbows, and lit 
up the whole region around, and kept it gay and 
happy and cheerful ; and he was full of accommoda- 
ting ways, and knew all about how to do things, and 
when to do them, and the best way. So the long 
journey was a fairy dream for that young lad who 
had been so lonely and forlorn and friendless so 
many homesick weeks. At last, when the two 
travelers were approaching the frontier, Parrish said 
something about passports; then started, as if recol- 
lecting something, and added : 

” Why, come to think, I don’t remember your 
bringing my passport away from the consulate. 
But you did, didn’t you? ” 

‘‘ No; it’s coming by mail,” said the Major, com- 
fortably. 


The Belated Russian Passport 


169 


“ K — coming — by — mail ! ’ ’ gasped the lad ; 
and all the dreadful things he had heard about the 
terrors and disasters of passportless visitors to 
Russia rose in his frightened mind and turned him 
white to the lips. “ Oh, Major — oh, my goodness, 
what will become of me ! How could you do such a 
thing? ” 

The Major laid a soothing hand upon the youth’s 
shoulder and said : 

“ Now don’t you worry, my boy, don’t you worry 
a bit. I’m taking care of you, and I’m not going 
to let any harm come to you. The Chief Inspector 
knows me, and I’ll explain to him, and it’ll be all 
right — you’ll see. Now don’t you give yourself 
the least discomfort — I’ll fix it all up, easy as 
nothing.” 

Alfred trembled, and felt a great sinking inside, 
but he did what he could to conceal his misery, and 
to respond with some show of heart to the Major’s 
kindly pettings and reassurings. 

At the frontier he got out and stood on the edge 
of the great crowd, and waited in deep anxiety 
while the Major plowed his way through the mass 
to ” explain to the Chief Inspector.” It seemed a 
cruelly long wait, but at last the Major reappeared. 
He said, cheerfully, ” Damnation, it’s a new in- 
spector, and I don’t know him !” 

Alfred fell up against a pile of trunks, with a des- 
pairing, ‘‘ Oh, dear, dear, I might have known it! ” 


170 


The Belated Russian Passport 


and was slumping limp and helpless to the ground, 
but the Major gathered him up and seated him on a 
box, and sat down by him, with a supporting arm 
around him, and whispered in his ear: 

“Don’t worry, laddie, don’t — it’s going to be 
all right; you just trust to me. The sub-inspector’s 
as near-sighted as a shad. I watched him, and I 
know it’s so. Now I’ll tell you how to do. I’ll go 
and get my passport chalked, then I’ll stop right 
yonder inside the grille where you see those peasants 
with their packs. You be there, and I’ll back up 
against the grille, and slip my passport to you 
through the bars, then you tag along after the 
crowd and hand it in, and trust to Providence and 
that shad. Mainly the shad. You’ll pull through 
all right — now don’t you be afraid.” 

“ But, oh dear, dear, your description and mine 
don’t tally any more than — ” 

“ Oh, that’s all light — difference between fifty- 
one and nineteen — just entirely imperceptible to 
that shad — don’t you fret, it’s going to come out 
as right as nails.” 

Ten minutes later Alfred was tottering toward the 
train, pale, and in a collapse, but he had played the 
shad successfully, and was as grateful as an untaxed 
dog that has evaded the police. 

“ I told you so,” said the Major, in splendid 
spirits. “ I knew it would come out all right if you 
trusted in Providence like a little trusting child and 


The Belated Russian Passport 171 

didn’t try to improve on His ideas — it always 
does.” 

Between the frontier and Petersburg the Major laid 
himself out to restore his young comrade’s life, and 
work up his circulation, and pull him out of his des- 
pondency, and make him feel again that life was a 
joy and worth living. And so, as a consequence, 
the young fellow entered the city in high feather and 
marched into the hotel in fine form, and registered 
his name. But instead of naming a room, the 
clerk glanced at him inquiringly, and waited. The 
Major came promptly to the rescue, and said, cor- 
dially : 

” It’s all right — you know me — set him down, 
I’m responsible.” The clerk looked grave, and 
shook his head. The Major added : “It’s all right, 
it’ll be here in twenty-four hours — it’s coming 
by mail. Here’s mine, and his is coming, right 
along.” 

The clerk was full of politeness, full of deference, 
but he was firm. He said, in English: 

” Indeed, I wish I could accommodate you. 
Major, and certainly I would if I could ; but I have 
no choice, I must ask him to go ; I cannot allow him 
to remain in the house a moment.” 

Parrish began to totter, and emitted a moan ; the 
Major caught him and stayed him with an arm, and 
said to the clerk, appealingly : 

” Come, you know me — everybody does — just 


172 The Belated Russian Passport 

let him stay here the one night, and I give you my 
word — ’ ’ 

The clerk shook his head, and said: 

“ But, Major, you are endangering me, you are 
endangering the house. I — I hate to do such a 
thing, but I — I must call the police.” 

” Hold on, don’t do that. Come along, my boy, 
and don’t you fret — it’s going to come out all 
right. Hi, there, cabby! Jump in, Parrish. 
Palace of the General of the Secret Police — turn 
them loose, cabby 1 Let them go ! Make them 
whiz I Now we’re off, and don’t you give yourself 
any uneasiness. Prince Bossloffsky knows me, 
knows me like a book; he’ll soon fix things all right 
for us.” 

They tore through the gay streets and arrived at 
the palace, which was brilliantly lighted. But it was 
half past eight; the Prince was about going in to 
dinner, the sentinel said, and couldn’t receive any 
one. 

‘‘ But he’ll receive said. the Major, robustly, 
and handed his card. ‘‘ I’m Major Jackson. Send 
it in; it’ll be all right.” 

The card was sent in, under protest, and the Major 
and his waif waited in a reception-room for some 
time. At length they were sent for, and conducted 
to a sumptuous private office and confronted with 
the Prince, who stood there gorgeously arrayed and 
frowning like a thunder-cloud. The Major stated 


The Belated Russian Passport 


173 


his case, and begged for a twenty-four-hour stay of 
proceedings until the passport should be forthcom- 
ing. 

“ Oh, impossible! said the Prince, in faultless 
English. “ I marvel that you should have done so 
insane a thing as to bring the lad into the country 
without a passport. Major, I marvel at it; why, it’s 
ten years in Siberia, and no help for it — catch him ! 
support him I ’ ’ for poor Parrish was making another 
trip to the floor. “ Here — quick, give him this. 
There — take another draught ; brandy’s the thing, 
don’t you find it so, lad? Now you feel better, poor 
fellow. Lie down on the sofa. How stupid it was 
of you. Major, to get him into such a horrible 
scrape.” 

The Major eased the boy down with his strong 
arms, put a cushion under his head, and whispered 
in his ear: 

‘ ‘ Look as damned sick as you can ! Play it for 
all it’s worth; he’s touched, you see; got a tender 
heart under there somewhere; fetch a groan, and 
say, * Oh, mamma, mamma ’ ; it’ll knock him out, 
sure as guns.” 

Parrish was going to do these things anyway, 
from native impulse, so they came from him 
promptly, with great and moving sincerity, and the 
Major whispered : ‘‘Splendid! Do it again; Bern- 
hardt couldn’t beat it.” 

What with the Major’s eloquence and the boy’s 


174 


The Belated Russian Passport 


misery, the point was gained at last; the Prince 
struck his colors, and said : 

‘ ‘ Have it your way ; though you deserve a sharp 
lesson and you ought to get it. I give you exactly 
twenty-four hours. If the passport is not here 
then, don’t come near me; it’s Siberia without hope 
of pardon.” 

While the Major and the lad poured out their 
thanks, the Prince rang in a couple of soldiers, and 
in their own language he ordered them to go with 
these two people, and not lose sight of the younger 
one a moment for the next twenty-four hours ; and 
if, at the end of that term, the boy could not show a 
passport, impound him in the dungeons of St. Peter 
and St. Paul, and report. 

The unfortunates arrived at the hotel with their 
guards, dined under their eyes, remained in Parrish’s 
room until the Major went off to bed, after cheering 
up the said Parrish, then one of the soldiers locked 
himself and Parrish in, and the other one stretched 
himself across the door outside and soon went off to 
sleep. 

So also did not Alfred Parrish. The moment he 
was alone with the solemn soldier and the voiceless 
silence his machine-made cheerfulness began to waste 
away, his medicated courage began to give off its 
supporting gases and shrink toward normal, and his 
poor little heart to shrivel like a raisin. Within 
thirty minutes he struck bottom; grief, misery. 


The Belated Russian Passport 


175 


fright, despair, could go no lower. Bed? Bed was 
not for such as he; bed was not for the doomed, the 
lost! Sleep? He was not the Hebrew children, he 
could not sleep in the fire I He could only walk 
the floor. And not only could, but must. And did, 
by the hour. And mourned, and wept, and shud- 
dered, and prayed. 

Then all-sorrowfully he made his last dispositions, 
and prepared himself, as well as in him lay, to meet 
his fate. As a final act, he wrote a letter : 

‘ ‘ My darling Mother, — When these sad lines 
shall have reached you your poor Alfred will be no 
more. No ; worse than that, far worse 1 Through 
my own fault and foolishness I have fallen into the 
hands of a sharper or a lunatic ; I do not know 
which, but in either case I feel that I am lost. 
Sometimes I think he is a sharper, but most of the 
time I think he is only mad, for he has a kind, good 
heart, I know, and he certainly seems to try the 
hardest that ever a person tried to get me out of the 
fatal difficulties he has gotten me into. 

In a few hours I shall be one of a nameless 
horde plodding the snowy solitudes of Russia, under 
the lash, and bound for that land of mystery and 
misery and termless oblivion, Siberia! I shall not 
live to see it; my heart is broken and I shall die. 
Give my picture to her^ and ask her to keep it in 
memory of me, and to so live that in the appointed 
time she may join me in that better world where 


176 


The Belated Russian Passport 


there is no marriage nor giving in marriage, and 
where there are no more separations, and troubles 
never come. Give my yellow dog to Archy Hale, 
and the other one to Henry Taylor; my blazer I 
give to brother Will, and my fishing things and 
Bible. 

“There is no hope for me. I cannot escape; 
the soldier stands -there with his gun and never takes 
his eyes off me, just blinks ; there is no other move- 
ment, any more than if he was dead. I cannot bribe 
him, the maniac has my money. My letter of credit 
is in my trunk, and may never come — will never 
come, I know. Oh, what is to become of me ! 
Pray for me, darling mother, pray for your poor 
Alfred. But it will do no good.” 


IV. 

In the morning Alfred came out looking scraggy 
and worn when the Major summoned him to an 
early breakfast. They fed their guards, they lit 
cigars, the Major loosened his tongue and set it go- 
ing, and under its magic influence Alfred gradually 
and gratefully became hopeful, measurably cheerful, 
and almost happy once more. 

But he would not leave the house. Siberia hung 
over him black and threatening, his appetite for 
sights was all gone, he could not have borne the 


The Belated Russian Passport 


177 


shame of inspecting streets and galleries and churches 
with a soldier at each elbow and all the world stop- 
ping and staring and commenting — no, he would 
stay within and wait for the Berlin mail and his fate. 
So, all day long the Major stood gallantly by him 
in his room, with one soldier standing stiff and 
motionless against the door with his musket at his 
shoulder, and the other one drowsing in a chair out- 
side; and all day long the faithful veteran spun 
campaign yarns, described battles, reeled off explo- 
sive anecdotes, with unconquerable energy and 
sparkle and resolution, and kept the scared student 
alive and his pulses functioning. The long day wore 
to a close, and the pair, followed by their guards, 
went down to the great dining-room and took their 
seats. 

“The suspense will be over before long, now,” 
sighed poor Alfred. 

Just then a pair of Englishmen passed by, and one 
of them said, “ So weTl get no letters from Berlin 
to-night. ' ’ 

Parrish’s breath began to fail him. The English- 
men seated themselves at a near-by table, and the 
other one said : 

“No, it isn’t as bad as that.” Parrish’s breath- 
ing improved. “There is later telegraphic news. 
The accident did detain the train formidably, but 
that is all. It will arrive here three hours late to- 
night.” 


178 


The Belated Russian Passport 


Parrish did not get to the floor this time, for the 
Major jumped for him in time. He had been listen- 
ing, and foresaw what would happen. He patted 
Parrish on the back, hoisted him out of his chair, 
and said, cheerfully: 

“ Come along, my boy, cheer up, there’s abso- 
lutely nothing to worry about. I know a way out. 
Bother the passport; let it lag a week if it wants 
to, we can do without it.” 

Parrish was too sick to hear him; hope was gone, 
Siberia present; he moved off on legs of lead, up- 
held by the Major, who walked him to the American 
legation, heartening him on the way with assurances 
that on his recommendation the minister wouldn’t 
hesitate a moment to grant him a new passport. 

” I had that card up my sleeve all the time,” he 
said. ” The minister knows me — knows me famil- 
iarly — chummed together hours and hours under a 
pile of other wounded at Cold Harbor ; been chum- 
mies ever since, in spirit, though we haven’t met 
much in the body. Cheer up, laddie, everything’s 
looking splendid ! By gracious ! I feel as cocky as 
a buck angel. Here we are, and our troubles are at 
an end ! If we ever really had any.” 

There, alongside the door, was the trade-mark of 
the richest and freest and mightiest republic of all 
the ages: the pine disk, with the planked eagle 
spread upon it, his head and shoulders among the 
stars, and his claws full of out-of-date war material ; 


The Belated Russian Passport 179 

and at that sight the tears came into Alfred's eyes, 
the pride of country rose in his heart, Hail Columbia 
boomed up in his breast, and all his fears and sor- 
rows vanished away ; for here he was safe, safe ! not 
all the powers of the earth would venture to cross 
that threshold to lay a hand upon him ! 

For economy's sake the mightiest republic's lega- 
tions in Europe consist of a room and a half on the 
ninth floor, when the tenth is occupied, and the lega- 
tion furniture consists of a minister or an ambassador 
with a brakeman's salary, a secretary of legation 
who sells matches and mends crockery for a living, 
a hired girl for interpreter and general utility, 
pictures of the American liners, a chromo of the 
reigning President, a desk, three chairs, kerosene- 
lamp, a cat, a clock, and a cuspidor with motto, 
“ In God We Trust." 

The party climbed up there, followed by the 
escort. A man sat at the desk writing official things 
on wrapping-paper with a nail. He rose and faced 
about; the cat climbed down and got under the 
desk; the hired girl squeezed herself up into the 
corner by the vodka-jug to make room ; the soldiers 
squeezed themselves up against the wall alongside 
of her, with muskets at shoulder arms. Alfred was 
radiant with happiness and the sense of rescue. 
The Major cordially shook hands with the official, 
rattled off his case in easy and fluent style, and asked 
for the desired passport. 


180 


The Belated Russian Passport 


The official seated his guests, then said: “ Well, 
I am only the secretary of legation, you know, and 
I wouldn’t like to grant a passport while the minister 
is on Russian soil. There is far too much responsi- 
bility.” 

“All right, send for him.” 

The secretary smiled, and said: “That’s easier 
said than done. He’s away up in the wilds, some- 
where, on his vacation.” 

“ Ger-reat Scott!” ejaculated the Major. 

Alfred groaned; the color went out of his face, 
and he began to slowly collapse in his clothes. The 
secretary said, wonderingly: 

“ Why, what are you Great-Scotting about. 
Major? The Prince gave you twenty-four hours. 
Look at the clock; you’re all right; you’ve half an 
hour left; the train is just due; the passport will 
arrive in time.” 

“Man, there’s news! The train is three hours 
behind time ! This boy’s life and liberty are wast- 
ing away by minutes, and only thirty of them left ! 
In half an hour he’s the same as dead and damned 
to all eternity ! By God, we must have the pass- 
port ! ’ ’ 

“ Oh, I am dying, I know it!” wailed the lad, 
and buried his face in his arms on the desk. A 
quick change came over the secretary, his placidity 
vanished away, excitement flamed up in his face and 
eyes, and he exclaimed : 


The Belated Russian Passport 


181 


“ I see the whole ghastliness of the situation, but, 
Lord help us, what can I do? What can you 
suggest?’* 

“ Why, hang it, give him the passport!” 

“Impossible! totally impossible! You know 
nothing about him ; three days ago you had never 
heard of him ; there’s no way in the world to identify 
him. He is lost, lost — there’s no possibility of sav- 
ing him !” 

The boy groaned again, and sobbed out, “ Lord, 
Lord, it’s the last of earth for Alfred Parrish!” 

Another change came over the secretary. 

In the midst of a passionate outburst of pity, vex- 
ation, and hopelessness, he stopped short, his man- 
ner calmed down, and he asked, in the indifferent 
voice which one uses in introducing the subject of 
the weather when there is nothing to talk about, * ‘ Is 
that your name?” 

The youth sobbed out a yes. 

“ Where are you from?” 

“ Bridgeport.” 

The secretary shook his head — shook it again — 
and muttered to himself. After a moment : 

“ Born there?” 

“No; New Haven.” 

“ Ah-h.” The secretary glanced at the Major, 
who was listening intently, with blank and unenlight- 
ened face, and indicated rather than said, “ There is 
vodka there, in case the soldiers are thirsty.” The 


12 


182 


The Belated Russian Passport 


Major sprang up, poured for them, and received 
their gratitude. The questioning went on. 

“ How long did you live in New Haven 

“ Till I was fourteen. Came back two years ago 
to enter Yale.’' 

“ When you lived there, what street did you live 
on?” 

” Parker Street.” 

With a vague half-light of comprehension dawning 
in his eye, the Major glanced an inquiry at the sec- 
retary. The secretary nodded, the Major poured 
vodka again. 

‘‘What number?” 

‘‘ It hadn’t any.” 

The boy sat up and gave the secretary a pathetic 
look which said, ‘‘ Why do you want to torture me 
with these foolish things, when I am miserable 
enough without it?” 

The secretary went on, unheeding: ‘‘What kind 
of a house was it?” 

‘ ‘ Brick — two story. ’ ’ 

‘‘ Flush with the sidewalk?” 

‘‘ No, small yard in front.” 

‘‘ Iron fence?” 

‘‘ No, palings.” 

The Major poured vodka again — without instruc- 
tions — poured brimmers this time ; and his face had 
cleared and was alive now. 

‘‘ What do you see when you enter the door?” 


The Belated Russian Passport I83 

‘ ‘ A narrow hall ; door at the end of it, and a 
door at your right.’* 

“ Anything else?” 

” Hat-rack.” 

” Room at the right?” 

“Parlor.” 

“ Carpet?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Kind of carpet?” 

“ Old-fashioned Wilton.” 

“ Figures?” 

“ Yes — hawking-party, horseback.” 

The Major cast an eye at the clock — only six 
minutes left ! He faced about with the jug, and as 
he poured he glanced at the secretary, then at the 
clock — inquiringly. The secretary nodded ; the 
Major covered the clock from view with his body a 
moment, and set the hands back half an hour; then 
he refreshed the men — double rations. 

“ Room beyond the hall and hat-rack?” 

“ Dining-room.” 

“ Stove?” 

“ Grate.” 

“ Did your people own the house?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Do they own it yet?” 

“ No; sold it when we moved to Bridgeport.” 

The secretary paused a little, then said, “ Did you 
have a nickname among your playmates?” 

L 


184 


The Belated Russian Passport 


The color slowly rose in the youth’s pale cheeks, 
and he dropped his eyes. He seemed to struggle 
with himself a moment or two, then he said, plain- 
tively, “ They called me Miss Nancy.” 

The secretary mused awhile, then he dug up 
another question: 

” Any ornaments in the dining-room?” 

“Well, y — no.” 

” None ? None at all?'* 

”No.” 

‘ ‘ The mischief ! Isn’t that a little odd ? Think ! ’ ’ 

The youth thought and thought; the secretary 
waited, slightly panting. At last the imperiled waif 
looked up sadly and shook his head. 

“Think — think!'" cried the Major, in anxious 
solicitude; and poured again. 

‘ ‘ Come ! ’ ’ said the secretary, ‘ ‘ not even a 
picture ?' ’ 

“ Oh, certainly! but you said ornament.” 

“ Ah! What did your father think of it?” 

The color rose again. The boy was silent. 

“ Speak,” said the secretary. 

“ Speak,” cried the Major, and his trembling hand 
poured more vodka outside the glasses than inside. 

“I — I can’t tell you what he said,” murmured 
the boy. 

“ Quick! quick!” said the secretary; “ out with 
it; there’s no time to lose — home and liberty or 
Siberia and death depend upon the answer. *^* 


The Belated Russian Passport I85 

“ Oh, have pity! he is a clergyman, and — 

“No matter; out with it, or — “ 

“He said it was the hellfiredest nightmare he ever 
struck ! ’ ' 

“ Saved!” shouted the secretary, and seized his 
nail and a blank passport. “/ identify you; IVe 
lived in the house, and I painted the picture my- 
self!” 

“ Oh, come to my arms, my poor rescued boy!” 
cried the Major. “ We will always be grateful to 
God that He made this artist ! — if He did.” 


TWO LITTLE TALES 

FIRST STORY: THE MAN WITH A MESSAGE FOR THE 
DIRECTOR-GENERAL 

S OME days ago, in this second month of 1900, 
a friend made an afternoon call upon me here 
in London. We are of that age when men who are 
smoking away their time in chat do not talk quite so 
much about the pleasantnesses of life as about its 
exasperations. By and by this friend began to 
abuse the War Office. It appeared that he had a 
friend who had been inventing something which 
could be made very useful to the soldiers in South 
Africa. It was a light and very cheap and durable 
boot, which would remain dry in wet weather, and 
keep its shape and firmness. The inventor wanted 
to get the government’s attention called to it, but he 
was an unknown man and knew the great officials 
would pay no heed to a message from him. 

‘ ‘ This shows that he was an ass — like the rest of 
us,” I said, interrupting. ” Go on.” 

‘‘But why have you said that? The man spoke 
the truth.” 

‘‘ The man spoke a lie. Go on.” 

‘‘ I will prove that he — ” 


( 186 ) 


Two Little Tales 


187 


“You can’t prove anything of the kind. I am 
very old and very wise. You must not argue with 
me: it is irreverent and offensive. Go on.’’ 

“ Very well. But you will presently see. I am 
not unknown, yet even / was not able to get the 
man’s message to the Director-General of the Shoe- 
Leather Department.’’ 

“ This is another lie. Pray go on.” 

“ But I assure you on my honor that I failed.” 

“Oh, certainly. I knew You didn’t need 

to tell me.” 

‘ ‘ Then where is the lie ? ” 

“It is in your intimation that you were not able 
to get the Director-General’s immediate attention to 
the man’s message. It is a lie, because you could 
have gotten his immediate attention to it.” 

“I tell you I couldn’t. In three months I 
haven’t accomplished it.” 

“ Certainly. Of course. I could know that with- 
out your telling me. You could have gotten his im- 
mediate attention if you had gone at it in a sane 
way; and so could the other man.” 

“ I did go at it in a sane way.” 

“You didn’t.” 

How do jyou know? What do you know about 
the circumstances ? ’ ’ 

“Nothing at all. But you didn’t go at it in a 
sane way. That much I know to a certainty.” 

“ How can you know it, when you don’t know 
what method I used ? ’ ’ 


188 


Two Little Tales 


“I know by the result. The result is perfect 
proof. You went at it in an insane way. I am 
very old and very w — ” 

“ Oh, yes, I know. But will you let me tell you 
how I proceeded? I think that will settle whether 
it was insanity or not.” 

” No; that has already been settled. But go on, 
since you so desire to expose yourself. I am 
very o — ” 

” Certainly, certainly. I sat down and wrote a 
courteous letter to the Director-General of the Shoe- 
Leather Department, explai — ” 

” Do you know him personally? ” 

“No.” 

“ You have scored one for my side. You began 
insanely. Go on.” 

“ In the letter I made the great value and inex- 
pensiveness of the invention clear, and offered to — ’ * 

“ Call and see him? Of course you did. Score 
two against yourself. I am v — ’ ’ 

“ He didn’t answer for three days.” 

“Necessarily. Proceed.” 

“ Sent me three gruff lines thanking me for my 
trouble, and proposing — ” 

“Nothing.” 

“That’s it — proposing nothing. Then I wrote 
him more elaborately and — ’ ’ 

“ Score three — ” 

“ — and got no answer. At the end of a week I 
wrote and asked, with some touch of asperity, for 
an answer to that letter.” 


Two Little Tales 


189 


“Four. Goon.” 

' ‘ An answer came back saying the letter had not 
been received, and asking for a copy. I traced the 
letter through the post-office, and found that it had 
been received ; but I sent a copy and said nothing. 
Two weeks passed without further notice of me. In 
the mean time I gradually got myself cooled down to 
a polite-letter temperature. Then I wrote and pro- 
posed an interview for next day, and said that if I 
did not hear from him in the mean time I should take 
his silence for assent.” 

“Score five.” 

“ I arrived at twelve sharp, and was given a chair 
in the anteroom and told to wait. I waited until 
half-past one; then I left, ashamed and angry. I 
waited another week, to cool down; then I wrote 
and made another appointment with him for next 
day noon.” 

“Score six.” 

“ He answered, assenting. I arrived promptly, 
and kept a chair warm until half-past two. I left 
then, and shook the dust of that place from my 
shoes for good and all. For rudeness, inefficiency, 
incapacity, indifference to the army’s interests, the 
Director-General of the Shoe-Leather Department 
of the War Office is, in my o — ” 

“ Peace ! I am very old and very wise, and have 
seen many seemingly intelligent people who hadn’t 
common sense enough to go at a simple and easy 
thing like this in a common-sense way. You are 


190 


Two Little Tales 


not a curiosity to me; I have personally known 
millions and billions like you. You have lost three 
months quite unnecessarily; the inventor has lost 
three months; the soldiers have lost three — nine 
months altogether. I will now read you a little 
tale which I wrote last night. Then you will call on 
the Director7General at noon to-morrow and transact 
your business.” 

‘‘ Splendid ! Do you know him? ” 

‘‘ No; but listen to the tale.” 

SECOND STORY : HOW THE CHIMNEY-SWEEP GOT THE 
EAR OF THE EMPEROR 

I 

Summer was come, and all the strong were bowed 
by the burden of the awful heat, and many of the 
weak were prostrate and dying. For weeks the 
army had been wasting away with a plague of 
dysentery, that scourge of the soldier, and there 
was but little help. The doctors were in despair; 
such efficacy as their drugs and their science had 
once had — and it was not much at its best — was a 
thing of the past, and promised to remain so. 

The Emperor commanded the physicians of great- 
est renown to appear before him for a consultation, 
for he was profoundly disturbed. He was very 
severe with them, and called them to account for 
letting his soldiers die : and asked them if they knew 
their trade, or didn’t; and were they properly heal- 
ers, or merely assassins? Then the principal assassin, 


Two Little Tales 


191 


who was also the oldest doctor in the land and the 
most venerable in appearance, answered and said : 

“We have done what we could, your Majesty, 
and for a good reason it has been little. No medi- 
cine and no physician can cure that disease; only 
nature and a good constitution can do it. I am old, 
and I know. No doctor and no medicine can cure 
it — I repeat it and I emphasize it. Sometimes they 
seem to help nature a little, — a very little, — but as 
a rule, they merely do damage.’* 

The Emperor was a profane and passionate man, 
and he deluged the doctors with rugged and un- 
familiar names, and drove them from his presence. 

Within a day he was attacked by that fell disease 
himself. The news flew from mouth to mouth, 
and carried consternation with it over all the land. 

All the talk was about this awful disaster, and 
there was general depression, for few had hope. 
The Emperor himself was very melancholy, and 
sighed and said : 

“The will of God be done. Send for the assas- 
sins again, and let us get over with it.” 

They came, and felt his pulse and looked at his 
tongue, and fetched the drug store and emptied it 
into him, and sat down patiently to wait — for they 
were not paid by the job, but by the year. 

II 

Tommy was sixteen and a bright lad, but he was 
not in society. His rank was too humble for that, 


192 


Two Little Tales 


and his employment too base. In fact, it was the 
lowest of all employments, for he was second in 
command to his father, who emptied cesspools and 
drove a night-cart. Tommy’s closest friend was 
Jimmy the chimney-sweep, a slim little fellow of 
fourteen, who was honest and industrious, and had a 
good heart*, and supported a bedridden mother by 
his dangerous and unpleasant trade. 

About a month after the Emperor fell ill, these 
two lads met one evening about nine. Tommy was 
on his way to his night-work, and of course was not 
in his Sundays, but in his dreadful work-clothes, and 
not smelling very well. Jimmy was on his way 
home from his day’s labor, and was blacker than 
any other object imaginable, and he had his brushes 
on his shoulder and his soot-bag at his waist, and no 
feature of his sable face was distinguishable except 
his lively eyes. 

They sat down on the curbstone to talk ; and of 
course it was upon the one subject — the nation’s 
calamity, the Emperor’s disorder. Jimmy was full of 
a great project, and burning to unfold it. He said : 

“Tommy, I can cure his Majesty. I know how 
to do it.’’ 

Tommy was surprised. 

“What! You?’’ 

“Yes, I.’’ 

“ Why, you little fool, the best doctors can’t.’’ 

“I don’t care: I can do it. I can cure him in 
fifteen minutes.” 


Two Little Tales 


193 


“ Oh, come off! What are you giving me? ” 

“The facts — that’s all.’’ 

Jimmy’s manner was so serious that it sobered 
Tommy, who said : 

“ I believe you are in earnest, Jimmy. Are you 
in earnest ? ’ ’ 

“ I give you my word.’’ 

“ What is the plan? How’ll you cure him? ’’ 

“ Tell him to eat a slice of ripe watermelon.’’ 

It caught Tommy rather suddenly, and he was 
shouting with laughter at the absurdity of the idea 
before he could put on a stopper. But he sobered 
down when he saw that Jimmy was wounded. He 
patted Jimmy’s knee affectionately, not minding the 
soot, and said : 

“I take the laugh all back. I didn’t mean any 
harm, Jimmy, and I won’t do it again. You see, it 
seemed so funny, because wherever there’s a soldier- 
camp and dysentery, the doctors always put up a 
sign saying anybody caught bringing watermelons 
there will be flogged with the cat till he can’t stand.’’ 

“ I know it — the idiots I ” said Jimmy, with both 
tears and anger in his voice. “There’s plenty of 
watermelons, and not one of all those soldiers ought 
to have died.’’ 

‘ ‘ But, Jimmy, what put the notion into your head ? ’ ’ 

“It isn’t a notion; it’s a fact. Do you know 
that old gray-headed Zulu? Well, this long time 
back he has been curing a lot of our friends, and 
my mother has seen him do it, and so have I. It 


194 


Two Little Tales 


takes only one or two slices of melon, and it don't 
make any difference whether the disease is new or 
old ; it cures it. ’ ’ 

“It’s very odd. But, Jimmy, if it is so, the 
Emperor ought to be told of it.” 

“Of course; and my mother has told people, 
hoping they could get the word to him; but they 
are poor working-folks and ignorant, and don’t 
know how to manage it. ’ ’ 

“Of course they don’t, the blunderheads,’’ said 
Tommy, scornfully. “ /’// get it to him ! ’’ 

“You? You night-cart polecat!’’ And it was 
Jimmy’s turn to laugh. But Tommy retorted 
sturdily : 

“ Oh, laugh if you like; but I’ll do it I ’’ 

It had such an assured and confident sound that it 
made an impression, and Jimmy asked gravely: 

“ Do you know the Emperor? ’’ 

“Do I know him? Why, how you talk! Of 
course I don’t.’’ 

“ Then how’ll you do it? ’’ 

“ It’s very simple and very easy. Guess. How 
would j/ou do it, Jimmy? ’’ 

“ Send him a letter. I never thought of it till 
this minute. But I’ll bet that’s your way.’’ 

“ I’ll bet it ain’t. Tell me, how would you 
send it? ’’ 

“ Why, through the mail, of course.’’ 

Tommy overwhelmed him with scoffings, and said : 

“Now, don’t you suppose every crank in the 


Two Little Tales 195 

empire is doing the same thing? Do you mean to 
say you haven’t thought of that? ” 

“Well — no,” said Jimmy, abashed. 

“ You might have thought of it, if you weren’t so 
young and inexperienced. Why, Jimmy, when even 
a common generaly or a poet, or an actor, or any- 
body that’s a little famous gets sick, all the cranks 
in the kingdom load up the mails with certain-sure 
quack cures for him. And so, what’s bound to 
happen when it’s the Emperor? ” 

“ I suppose it’s worse,” said Jimmy, sheepishly. 

“Well, I should think so! Look here, Jimmy: 
every single night we cart off as many as six loads 
of that kind of letters from the back yard of the 
palace, where they’re thrown. Eighty thousand 
letters in one night ! Do you reckon anybody 
reads them? Sho I not a single one. It’s what 
would happen to your letter if you wrote it — which 
you won’t, I reckon? ” 

“No,” sighed Jimmy, crushed. 

“But it’s all right, Jimmy. Don’t you fret: 
there’s more than one way to skin a cat. /’// get 
the word to him.” 

“ Oh, if you only couldy Tommy, I should love 
you forever I ’ ’ 

“ I’ll do it, I tell you. Don’t you worry; you 
depend on me.” 

“Indeed I will. Tommy, for you do know so 
much. You’re not like other boys: they never 
know anything. How’ll you manage. Tommy?” 


196 


Two Little Tales 


Tommy was greatly pleased. He settled himself 
for reposeful talk, and said : 

“ Do you know that ragged poor thing that thinks 
he’s a butcher because he goes around with a basket 
and sells cat’s meat and rotten livers? Well, to 
begin with, I’ll tell him'' 

Jimmy was deeply disappointed and chagrined, 
and said : 

“ Now, Tommy, it’s a shame to talk so. You 
know my heart’s in it, and it’s not right.” 

Tommy gave him a love-pat, and said : 

‘‘Don’t you be troubled, Jimmy. I know what 
I’m about. Pretty soon you’ll see. That half- 
breed butcher will tell the old woman that sells 
chestnuts at the corner of the lane — she’s his closest 
friend, and I’ll ask him to; then, by request, she’ll 
tell her rich aunt that keeps the little fruit-shop on 
the corner two blocks above ; and that one will tell 
her particular friend, the man that keeps the game- 
shop ; and he will tell his friend the sergeant of 
police; and the sergeant will tell his captain, and the 
captain will tell the magistrate, and the magistrate 
will tell his brother-in-law the county judge, and 
the county judge will tell the sheriff, and the sheriff 
will tell the Lord Mayor, and the Lord Mayor will 
tell the President of the Council, and the President 
of the Council will tell the — ” 

‘‘By George, but it’s a wonderful scheme. 
Tommy ! How ever did you — ’ ’ 

‘‘ — Rear-Admiral, and the Rear will tell the Vice. 


Two Little Tales 


197 


and the Vice will tell the Admiral of the Blue, and 
the Blue will tell the Red, and the Red will tell the 
White, and the White will tell the First Lord of the 
Admiralty, and the First Lord will tell the Speaker 
of the House, and the Speaker — ” 

“ Go it. Tommy; you’re ’most there! ” 

“ — will tell the Master of the Hounds, and the 
Master will tell the Head Groom of the Stables, and 
the Head Groom will tell the Chief Equerry, and 
the Chief Equerry will tell the First Lord in Waiting, 
and the First Lord will tell the Lord High Chamber- 
lain, and the Lord High Chamberlain will tell the 
Master of the Household, and the Master of the 
Household will tell the little pet page that fans the 
flies off the Emperor, and the page will get down on 
his knees and whisper it to his Majesty — and the 
game’s made I ” 

“ I’ve got to get up and hurrah a couple of times. 
Tommy. It’s the grandest idea that ever was. 
What ever put it into your head? ” 

“Sit down and listen, and I’ll give you some 
wisdom — and don’t you ever forget it as long as 
you live. Now, then, who is the closest friend 
you’ve got, and the one you couldn’t and wouldn’t 
ever refuse anything in the world to? ’’ 

“Why, it’s you. Tommy. You know that.’’ 
‘ ‘ Suppose you wanted to ask a pretty large favor 
of the cat’s-meat man. Well, you don’t know him, 
and he would tell you to go to thunder, for he is that 
kind of a person ; but he is my next best friend after 
13 


198 


Two Little Tales 


you, and would run his legs off to do me a kindness 
— any kindness, he don’t care what it is. Now, I’ll 
ask you: which is the most common-sensible — for 
you to go and ask him to tell the chestnut-woman 
about your watermelon cure, or for you to get me 
to do it for you? ” 

“To get you to do it for me, of course. I 
wouldn’t ever have thought of that. Tommy; it’s 
splendid ! ’’ 

“ It’s 2. philosophy y you see. Mighty good word — 
and large. It goes on this idea : everybody in the 
world, little and big, has one special friend, a friend 
that he’s glad to do favors to — not sour about it, 
but glad — glad clear to the marrow. And so, I 
don’t care where you start, you can get at anybody’s 
ear that you want to — I don’t care how low you are, 
nor how high he is. And it’s so simple: you’ve 
only to find the first friend, that is all; that ends 
your part of the work. He finds the next friend 
himself, and that one finds the third, and so on, 
friend after friend, link after link, like a chain; and 
you can go up it or down it, as high as you like or 
as low as you like.’’ 

“ It’s just beautiful. Tommy.’’ 

“It’s as simple and easy as a-b-c; but did you 
ever hear of anybody trying it? No; everybody is 
a fool. He goes to a stranger without any intro- 
duction, or writes him a letter, and of course he 
strikes a cold wave — and serves him gorgeously 
right. Now, the Emperor don’t know me, but 



JIMMY SAVES THE EMPEROR 






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Two Little Tales 


199 


that’s no matter — he’ll eat his watermelon to-mor- 
row. You’ll see. Hi-hi — stop! It’s the cat’s- 
meat man. Good-by, Jimmy; I’ll overtake him.” 
He did overtake him, and said : 

” Say, will you do me a favor? ” 

” Willi? Well, I should I’m your man. 

Name it, and see me fly I ” 

” Go tell the chestnut- woman to put down every- 
thing and carry this message to her first-best friend, 
and tell the friend to pass it along.” He worded the 
message, and said, ” Now, then, rush! ” 

The next moment the chimney-sweep’s word to 
the Emperor was on its way. 

Ill 

The next evening, toward midnight, the doctors 
sat whispering together in the imperial sick-room, 
and they were in deep trouble, for the Emperor was 
in very bad case. They could not hide it from them- 
selves that every time they emptied a fresh drug- 
store into him he got worse. It saddened them, for 
they were expecting that result. The poor emaci- 
ated Emperor lay motionless, with his eyes closed, 
and the page that was his darling was fanning the 
flies away and crying softly. Presently the boy heard 
the silken rustle of a portiere, and turned and saw the 
Lord High Great Master of the Household peering in 
at the door and excitedly motioning to him to come. 
Lightly and swiftly the page tiptoed his way to his 
dear and worshiped friend the Master, who said: 


M 


200 


Two Little Tales 


“ Only you can persuade him, my child, and oh, 
don’t fail to do it ! Take this, make him eat it, and 
he is saved.” 

” On my head be it. He shall eat it! ” 

It was a couple of great slices of ruddy, fresh 
watermelon. 

The next morning the news flew everywhere that 
the Emperor was sound and well again, and had 
hanged the doctors. A wave of joy swept the land, 
and frantic preparations were made to illuminate. 

After breakfast his Majesty sat meditating. His 
gratitude was unspeakable, and he was trying to de- 
vise a reward rich enough to properly testify it to his 
benefactor. He got it arranged in his mind, and 
called the page, and asked him if he had invented 
that cure. The boy said no — he got it from the 
Master of the Household. 

He was sent away, and the Emperor went to de- 
vising again. The Master was an earl; he would 
make him a duke, and give him a vast estate which 
belonged to a member of the Opposition. He had 
him called, and asked him if he was the inventor of 
the remedy. But the Master was an honest man, 
and said he got it of the Grand Chamberlain. He 
was sent away, and the Emperor thought some 
more. The Chamberlain was a viscount; he would 
make him an earl, and give him a large income. 
But the Chamberlain referred him to the First Lord 
in Waiting, and there was some more thinking; his 
Majesty thought out a smaller reward. But the 


Two Little Tales 


201 


First Lord in Waiting referred him back further, and 
he had to sit down and think out a further and 
becomingly and suitably smaller reward. 

Then, to break the tediousness of the inquiry and 
hurry the business, he sent for the Grand High 
Chief Detective, and commanded him to trace the 
cure to the bottom, so that he could properly reward 
his benefactor. 

At nine in the evening the High Chief Detective 
brought the word. He had traced the cure down 
to a lad named Jimmy, a chimney-sweep. The 
Emperor said, with deep feeling: 

“ Brave boy, he saved my life, and shall not re- 
gret it! ’’ 

And sent him a pair of his own boots; and the 
next best ones he had, too. They were too large 
for Jimmy, but they fitted the Zulu, so it was all 
right, and everything as it should be. 

CONCLUSION TO THE FIRST STORY 

‘ ‘ There — do you get the idea ? ’ ’ 

“ I am obliged to admit that I do. And it will be 
as you have said. I will transact the business to- 
morrow. I intimately know the Director-General’s 
nearest friend. He will give me a note of introduc- 
tion, with a word to say my matter is of real im- 
portance to the government. I will take it along, 
without an appointment, and send it in, with my card, 
and I shan’t have to wait so much as half a minute.” 

That turned out true to the letter, and the govern- 
ment adopted the boots. 


ABOUT PLAY-ACTING 


I 

I HAVE a project to suggest. But first I will write 
a chapter of introduction. 

I have just been witnessing a remarkable play, here 
at the Burg Theatre in Vienna. I do not know of 
any play that much resembles it. In fact, it is such 
a departure from the common laws of the/ drama 
that the name “play” doesn’t seem to fit it quite 
snugly. However, whatever else it may be, it is in 
any case a great and stately metaphysical poem, 
and deeply fascinating. “Deeply fascinating” is 
the right term, for the audience sat four hours and 
five minutes without thrice breaking into applause, 
except at the close of each act; sat rapt and silent 
— fascinated. This piece is “The Master of Pal- 
myra.” It is twenty years old; yeti doubt if you 
have ever heard of it. It is by Wilbrandt, and is 
his masterpiece and the work which is to make his 
name permanent in German literature. It has never 
been played anywhere except in Berlin and in the 
great Burg Theatre in Vienna. Yet whenever it is 
put on the stage it packs the house, and the free list 

(202) 


About Play-Acting 


203 


is suspended. I know people who have seen it ten 
times ; they know the most of it by heart ; they do 
not tire of it ; and they say they shall still be quite 
willing to go and sit under its spell whenever they 
get the opportunity. 

There is a dash of metempsychosis in it — and it 
is the strength of the piece. The play gave me the 
sense of the passage of a dimly connected procession 
of dream-pictures. The scene of it is Palmyra in 
Roman times. It covers a wide stretch of time — I 
don’t know how many years — and in the course of 
it the chief actress is reincarnated several times : 
four times she is a more or less young woman, 
and once she is a lad. In the first act she is Zoe — 
a Christian girl who has wandered across the desert 
from Damascus to try to Christianize the Zeus-wor- 
shiping pagans of Palmyra. In this character she 
is wholly spiritual, a religious enthusiast, a devotee 
who covets martyrdom — and gets it. 

After many years she appears in the second act as 
Phoebe y a graceful and beautiful young light-o’-love 
from Rome, whose soul is all for the shows and 
luxuries and delights of this life — a dainty and 
capricious featherhead, a creature of shower and 
sunshine, a spoiled child, but a charming one. 

In the third act, after an interval of many years, 
she reappears as Persiday mother of a daughter in 
the fresh bloom of youth. She is now a sort of 
combination of her two earlier selves: in religious 
loyalty and subjection she is Zoe ; in triviality of 


204 


About Play-Acting 


character and shallowness of judgment — together 
with a touch of vanity in dress — she is Phoebe . 

After a lapse of years she appears in the fourth 
act as NymphaSy a beautiful boy, in whose character 
the previous incarnations are engagingly mixed. 

And after another stretch of years all these heredi- 
ties are joined in the Zenobia of the fifth act — a 
person of gravity, dignity, sweetness, with a heart 
filled with compassion for all who suffer, and a hand 
prompt to put into practical form the heart’s benig- 
nant impulses. 

You will easily concede that the actress who pro- 
poses to discriminate nicely these five characters, 
and play them to the satisfaction of a cultivated and 
exacting audience, has her work cut out for her. 
Mme. Hohenfels has made these parts her peculiar 
property ; and she is well able to meet all the require- 
ments. You perceive, now, where the chief part of 
the absorbing fascination of this piece lies ; it is in 
watching this extraordinary artist melt these five 
characters into each other — grow, shade by shade, 
out of one and into another through a stretch of 
four hours and five minutes. 

There are a number of curious and interesting 
features in this piece. For instance, its hero, 
ApelleSy young, handsome, vigorous, in the first 
act, remains so all through the long flight of years 
covered by the five acts. Other men, young in the 
first act, are touched with gray in the second, are 
old and racked with infirmities in the third ; in the 


205 


About Play-Acting 

fourth, all but one are gone to their long home, and 
he is a blind and helpless hulk of ninety or a hundred 
years. It indicates that the stretch of time covered 
by the piece is seventy years or more. The scenery 
undergoes decay, too — the decay of age, assisted 
and perfected by a conflagration. The fine new 
temples and palaces of the second act are by and by 
a wreck of crumbled walls and prostrate columns, 
mouldy, grass-grown, and desolate; but their former 
selves are still recognizable in their ruins. The aging 
men and the aging scenery together convey a pro- 
found illusion of that long lapse of time : they make 
you live it yourself ! You leave the theatre with the 
weight of a century upon you. 

Another strong effect: Death, in person, walks 
about the stage in every act. So far as I could 
make out, he was supposedly not visible to any ex- 
cepting two persons — the one he came for and 
Apelles. He used various costumes: but there 
was always more black about them than any other 
tint; and so they were always sombre. Also they 
were always deeply impressive, and indeed awe- 
inspiring. The face was not subjected to changes, 
but remained the same, first and last — a ghastly 
white. To me he was always welcome, he seemed 
so real — the actual Death, not a play-acting artifi- 
ciality. He was of a solemn and stately carriage; 
he had a deep voice, and used it with a noble 
dignity. Wherever there was a turmoil of merry- 
making or fighting or feasting or chaffing or quarrel- 


206 


About Play-Acting 


ing, or a gilded pageant, or other manifestation of our 
trivial and fleeting life, into it drifted that black figure 
with the corpse-face, and looked its fateful look and 
passed on; leaving its victim shuddering and smitten. 
And always its coming made the fussy human pack 
seem infinitely pitiful and shabby and hardly worth 
the attention of either saving or damning. 

In the beginning of the first act the young girl Zoe 
appears by some great rocks in the desert, and sits 
down, exhausted, to rest. Presently arrive a pauper 
couple, stricken with age and infirmities; and they 
begin to mumble and pray to the Spirit of Life, who 
is said to inhabit that spot. The^ Spirit of Life 
appears; also Death — uninvited. They are (sup- 
posably) invisible. Death, tall, black-robed, corpse- 
faced, stands motionless and waits. The aged 
couple pray to the Spirit of Life for a means to 
prop up their existence and continue it. Their 
prayer fails. The Spirit of Life prophesies Zoe' s 
martyrdom: it will take place before night. Soon 
Apelles arrives, young and vigorous and full of 
enthusiasm ; he has led a host against the Persians 
and won the battle; he is the pet of fortune, 
rich, honored, beloved, “ Master of Palmyra.” He 
has heard that whoever stretches himself out on one of 
those rocks there, and asks for a deathless life, can 
have his wish. He laughs at the tradition, but wants 
to make the trial anyway. The invisible Spirit of Life 
warns him: ‘‘Life without end can be regret with- 
out end.” But he persists: let him keep his youth, 


About Play-Acting 


207 


his strength, and his mental faculties unimpaired, 
and he will take all the risks. He has his desire. 

From this time forth, act after act, the troubles 
and sorrows and misfortunes and humiliations of life 
beat upon him without pity or respite ; but he will 
not give up, he will not confess his mistake. When- 
ever he meets Death he still furiously defies him — 
but Death patiently waits. He, the healer of sor- 
rows, is man’s best friend: the recognition of this 
will come. As the years drag on, and on, and on, 
the friends of the Master' s youth grow old ; and one 
by one they totter to the grave : he goes on with his 
proud fight, and will not yield. At length he is 
wholly alone in the world ; all his friends are dead ; 
last of all, his darling of darlings, his son, the lad 
Nymphas, who dies in his arms. His pride is broken 
now ; and he would welcome Death, if Death would 
come, if Death would hear his prayers and give him 
peace. The closing act is fine and pathetic. 
Apelles meets Zenobiay the helper of all who 
suffer, and tells her his story, which moves her pity. 
By common report she is endowed with more than 
earthly powers; and, since he cannot have the boon 
of death, he appeals to her to drown his memory in 
forgetfulness of his griefs — forgetfulness, “which 
is death’s equivalent.’ She says (roughly trans- 
lated), in an exaltation of compassion: 

“ Come to me ! 

Kneel; and may the power be granted me 
To cool the fires of this poor tortured brain, 

And bring it peace and healing.” 


208 


About Play-Acting 


He kneels. From her hand, which she lays upon 
his head, a mysterious influence steals through him ; 
and he sinks into a dreamy tranquillity. 

“Oh, if I could but so drift 
Through this soft twilight into the night of peace, 

Never to wake again ! 

{Raising his hand^ as if in benediction.') 

O mother earth, farewell! 

Gracious thou wert to me. Farewell! 

Apelles goes to rest.” 

Death appears behind him and encloses the up- 
lifted hand in his. Apelles shudders, wearily and 
slowly turns, and recognizes his life-long adversary. 
He smiles and puts all his gratituc^e into one simple 
and touching sentence, “ Ich danke dir,” and dies. 

Nothing, I think, could be more moving, more 
beautiful, than this close. This piece is just one 
long, soulful, sardonic laugh at human life. Its title 
might properly be ‘‘Is Life a Failure? ” and leave 
the five acts to play with the answer. I am not at 
all sure that the author meant to laugh at life. I 
only notice that he has done it. Without putting 
into words any ungracious or discourteous things 
about life, the episodes in the piece seem to be say- 
ing all the time, inarticulately: ” Note what a silly, 
poor thing human life is; how childish its ambitions, 
how ridiculous its pomps, how trivial its dignities, 
how cheap its heroisms, how capricious its course, 
how brief its flight, how stingy in happiness, how 
opulent in miseries, how few its prides, how multi- 
tudinous its humiliations, how comic its tragedies, 


About Play-Acting 


209 


how tragic its comedies, how wearisome and monot- 
onous its repetition of its stupid history through the 
ages, with never the introduction of a new detail, how 
hard it has tried, from the Creation down, to play 
itself upon its possessor as a boon, and has never 
proved its case in a single instance ! ” 

Take note of some of the details of the piece. 
Each of the five acts contains an independent tragedy 
of its own. In each act somebody’s edifice of hope, 
or of ambition, or of happiness, goes down in ruins. 
Even Apelles' perennial youth is only a long 
tragedy, and his life a failure. There are two mar- 
tyrdoms in the piece ; and they are curiously and 
sarcastically contrasted. In the first act the pagans 
persecute Zoe\ the Christian girl, and a pagan mob 
slaughters her. In the fourth act those same 
pagans — now very old and zealous — are become 
Christians, and they persecute the pagans : a mob 
of them slaughters the pagan youth, NymphaSy 
who is standing up for the old gods of his 
fathers. No remark is made about this picturesque 
failure of civilization ; but there it stands, as an un- 
worded suggestion that civilization, even when 
Christianized, was not able wholly to subdue the 
natural man in that old day — just as in our day, the 
spectacle of a shipwrecked French crew clubbing 
women and children who tried to climb into the life- 
boats suggests that civilization has not succeeded in 
entirely obliterating the natural man even yet. 
Common sailors ! A year ago, in Paris, at a fire. 


210 


About Play-Acting 


the aristocracy of the same nation clubbed girls and 
women out of the way to save themselves. Civiliza- 
tion tested at top and bottom both, you see. And 
in still another panic of fright we have this same 
“tough” civilization saving its honor by condemn- 
ing an innocent man to multiform death, and hug- 
ging and whitewashing the guilty one. 

In the second act a grand Roman official is not 
above trying to blast Apelles* reputation by falsely 
charging him with misappropriating public moneys. 
Apelles y who is too proud to encfure even the sus- 
picion of irregularity, strips himself to naked pov- 
erty to square the unfair account ; and his troubles 
begin: the blight which is to continue and spread 
strikes his life; for the frivolous, pretty creature 
whom he has brought from Rome has no taste for 
poverty, and agrees to elope with a more competent 
candidate. Her presence in the house has previ- 
ously brought down the pride and broken the heart 
of Apelles'* poor old mother; and her life is a 
failure. Death comes for her, but is willing to trade 
her for the Roman girl; so the bargain is struck 
with Apelles, and the mother spared for the present. 

No one’s life escapes the blight. Timoleus, the 
gay satirist of the first two acts, who scoffed at the 
pious hypocrisies and money-grubbing ways of the 
great Roman lords, is grown old and fat and blear- 
eyed and racked with disease in the third, has lost 
his stately purities, and watered the acid of his wit. 
His life has suffered defeat. Unthinkingly he swears 


About Play-Acting 


211 


by Zeus — from ancient habit — and then quakes 
with fright ; for a fellow-communicant is passing by. 
Reproached by a pagan friend of his youth for his 
apostasy, he confesses that principle, when unsup- 
ported by an assenting stomach, has to climb down. 
One must have bread; and “ the bread is Christian 
now.” Then the poor old wreck, once so proud pf 
iron rectitude, hobbles away, coughing and barking. 

In the same act Apelles gives his sweet young 
Christian daughter and her fine young pagan lover 
his consent and blessing, and makes them utterly 
happy — for five minutes. Then the priest and the 
mob come, to tear them apart and put the girl in a 
nunnery; for marriage between the sects is forbid- 
den. Apelles' wife could dissolve the rule; and she 
wants to do it: but under priestly pressure she 
wavers ; then, fearing that in providing happiness for 
her child she would be committing a sin dangerous 
to herself, she goes over to the opposition, throwing 
the casting vote for the nunnery. The blight has 
fallen upon the young couple ; their life is a failure. 

In the fourth act, Longinus^ who made such a 
prosperous and enviable start in the first act, is left 
alone in the desert, sick, blind, helpless, incredibly 
old, to die: not a friend left in the world — another 
ruined life. And in that act, also, Apelles' wor- 
shiped boy, NymphaSy done to death by the mob, 
breathes out his last sigh in his father’s arms — one 
more failure. In the fifth act, Apelles himself 
dies, and is glad to do it; he who so ignorantly 
rejoiced, only four acts before, over the splendid 


212 About Play-Acting 

present of an earthly immortality — the very worst 
failure of the lot ! 


II 


Now I approach my project. Here is the theatre 
list for Saturday, May 7, 1898 — cut from the 
advertising columns of a New York paper : 


PROCTOR’S 

_ ^NRMWVniO <l6b ut^ Oft 

CUAIOJSS iUOARURKB • OCM 
Arthtgtnd Jwnt BfamtuftiillBgttlaoa Plqxw^Hngh- 
fB Doiwltar^. melidlOaitan. G0on» Bvaba. ot&na. 

SEIKAandNAirEDlSW WAR^GBAJPEU 
BALOONlgR, gSe- OatCHEaTRA. 60e. 


PASTOrS 


C O MTUB OP8 
WBS^OBaCANCSS. 
13:30 to SIKBL SewtoSO and 80 Centa. 

£DKOira WONDKRFUX. WAK-SOOPB. 
OANFIEU) & CABLETO N. BaXO tORK SI3TKB8. 
JOHMKY OARBOLL, CPBTI8 A GOKP^. 


•f ATH ST. THEATRE, nr. «}» ar. Good seats, GOo. 
THw. E. SHEA to tbeef^ naval play, 
TH E lttA «-<y.WAji*S 
_ SIEVBR SOUVICWIBS at Wed. & Sat. Mattoeea. 


ELEaRICAL SHOW. 

3 to 11 P. H. Admlsaloo. 6Dc. Children, Oa 
MAPISOy SQPARB OAMPEy. 


HtHtnaft||AD| C|| MUSIC Orcb.andBal. 

SEAUO^ nMI1l.dn HALU BaaSSoandtOc. 

RQffm Bros.. Mauds Raymond, Jos Wsicti, 
Raymond A Kuribunp. Qardbsr & Gilmore; others. 


4tb Ava. & 23d St. Begins 6:80. 
Daniel Frobman, Manager. 
Keloey'Shanoon Oo, In Cl yde Fitch’s 
TUB MOTH Am> THE FIAMB^ 


LYCEUIN. 


STAB. THE WHITE SQUADRON. Oal. 15c. 
latrodnctogBobt. Hilliard aXanisBiggar. Bal.tSo. 
Heart Week— -ThsMihado.” Orch. SOe, 


5 


TH AVB. THEATBB. Broadway sod 28tb St. 

MRS. FISKE Sat^bA^M^ 

to LOVE FINDS THE WAY 
and A BIT OF OLD CHELSEA. 


KFITH’S CQNTlNyOUS PEBFORMANCE, 

IVWIIIIW. SSa.SOaiNoootonP.M. 
BIOOBira, CBABLBS DIC^N a 00.. 1 CO. 
ANdTjOBHSTQNB BENNETT, OEOKGE W. LES- 


HAN8, 

LIA 

ELY. 

BliOCKSOM 


H A R I PM OPERA HOUSE. 
nMni.C,in »pe.8:li Matsat-B 

Neart Week^THE HIQHWAYMaH. 


“ CONTINUOUS “^1* 

PBREOKHAKCE. SDAVB. 
LEW DOCKSTAHEB. 
lOlton and pnlUo Nobles. Ivan Orebotf, Codnnaa 


•ltd Hotoombew CJF. L^lefleld^otbeiS; 

JUU9DK wi3s.Ca£iPH (liEW VIEW^ 

— o®®» *o ” p- **• - - 

1$80it ESc» ' 30 Of, SOe. ET06. 


aOBXIEKTmr MUStOt. 14 
A STUPEKllOOa r 


BAniis NATION. 


Wed.A8al..E Bve,8Ja. 


& 


SAM T. lACICS THEATRE, 

BBOAHWAY ft 88TH SC. 
SBIQ SHOWS EVZStT ^Y, 8 aQd B 
Jennie Yeamana & Ptwn^ T 


WEBEB&naK’ IUT.T 0 .Mr. 
POUSSE CAFE COH-CURERS. 

mss BESSIE CLAYTON, the Queen of DeccerSk 


Rlinil Mattooe To-day at B 

0IJUU To-nlebt at 8:1B 

Last Two Ferrormaaoes of 

MY FRIENO FROM INDIA 

NEXT WEEK-THE TARBYTOWN W11X>W. 


AMERICAN 

nmuiliuniv square Opera Company. 

MONTH Present THEBEGGARSTUDEirr. 

ENTIRE ROUSETto. 60. 75. Mat. To day. 25 S 801 
NEXT week— FAUST ON ENQLlSB). 


EMPXBB THEATBB. B'wm and 40tb sC 

TGRANE|H?£UTH^iilAYOR. 

EventDg8at8:30. 'Mata To day and Wed. at StlB 

OLYMPIA roeiir^^s^*'- 
...SSl^’WAB BUBBLES.” 

KNICKEBBOOKGfU B’WaY & 88TS, 

EVENINGS AT 8:16. MAT. TO-DAY AT BUT 

sous^ THE BBIDE-ELEOT 


KOSTER & RIAL’S "JiT"?b.My, 

ADELB RITCHIB la «<AU RALN.* 
Truly Sbattucb, Gerome Bdwawfy, and otfaeri: 


WAIXAC&’S Ergs. S:K. Mat, To-diu; H. 

THE BOSTONIANS 
» TH£ SERENADE. 


Daly*s 


Evenings. 8:15. Matinee T»day. B 
Thf tiT»r 


E CIRCUS GTBt. 

. ■ ....inta Earl. James Powi^ Sc 


Vf, 


About Play-Acting 


213 


Now I arrive at my project, and make my sug- 
gestion. From the look of this lightsome feast, I 
conclude that what you need is a tonic. Send for 
“The Master of Palmyra.” You are trying to 
make yourself believe that life is a comedy, that its 
sole business is fun, that there is nothing serious in 
it. You are ignoring the skeleton in your closet. 
Send for “The Master of Palmyra.” You are 
neglecting a valuable side of your life ; presently it 
will be atrophied. You are eating too much mental 
sugar; you will bring on Bright’s disease of the in- 
tellect. You need a tonic; you need it very much. 
Send for “ The Master of Palmyra.” You will not 
need to translate it : its story is as plain as a pro- 
cession of pictures. 

I have made my suggestion. Now I wish to put 
an annex to it. And that is this: It is right and 
wholesome to have those light comedies and enter- 
taining shows; and I shouldn’t wish to see them 
diminished. But none of us is always in the comedy 
spirit : we have our graver moods ; they come to us 
all; the lightest df us cannot escape them. These 
moods have their appetites — healthy and legitimate 
appetites — and there ought to be some way of satis- 
fying them. It seems to me that New York ought 
to have one theatre devoted to tragedy. With her 
three millions of population, and seventy outside 
millions to draw upon, she can afford it, she can 
support it. America devotes more time, labor, 

money, and attention to distributing literary and 
14 


214 


About Play-Acting 


musical culture among the general public than does 
any other nation, perhaps; yet here you find her 
neglecting what is possibly the most effective of all 
the breeders and nurses and disseminators of high 
literary taste and lofty emotion — the tragic stage. 
To leave that powerful agency out is to haul the 
culture- wagon with a crippled team. Nowadays, 
when a mood comes which only Shakspeare can set 
to music, what must we do? Read Shakspeare our- 
selves ! Isn’t it pitiful? It is playing an organ solo 
on a jew’s-harp. We can’t read. None but the 
Booths can do it. 

Thirty years ago Edwin Booth played ‘ ‘ Hamlet ’ ’ 
a hundred nights in New York. With three times 
the population, how often is “ Hamlet ” played now 
in a year? If Booth were back now in his prime, 
how often could he play it in New York? Some 
will say twenty-five nights. I will say three hun- 
dred, and say it with confidence. The tragedians 
are dead ; but I think that the taste and intelligence 
which made their market are not. 

What has come over us English-speaking people? 
During the first half of this century tragedies and 
great tragedians were as common with us as farce 
and comedy; and it was the same in England. Now 
we have not a tragedian, I believe; and London, 
with her fifty shows and theatres, has but three, I 
think. It is an astonishing thing, when you come 
to consider it. Vienna remains upon the ancient 
basis: there has been no change. She sticks to the 


215 


About Play-Acting 

former proportions: a number of rollicking come- 
dies, admirably played, every night; and also every 
night at the Burg Theatre — that wonder of the 
world for grace and beauty and richness and splen- 
dor and costliness — a majestic drama of depth and 
seriousness, or a standard old tragedy. It is only 
within the last dozen years that men have learned to 
do miracles on the stage in the way of grand and 
enchanting scenic effects ; and it is at such a time as 
this that we have reduced our scenery mainly to 
different breeds of parlors and varying aspects of 
furniture and rugs. I think we must have a Burg in 
New York, and Burg scenery, and a great company 
like the Burg company. Then, with a tragedy-tonic 
-once or twice a month, we shall enjoy the comedies 
all the better. Comedy keeps the heart sweet; but 
we all know that there is wholesome refreshment for 
both mind and heart in an occasional climb among 
the pomps of the intellectual snow-summits built by 
Shakspeare and those others. Do I seem to be 
preaching? It is out of my line: I only do it be- 
cause the rest of the clergy seem to be on vacation. 


N 


DIPLOMATIC PAY AND CLOTHES 


lENNA, January 5. — I find in this morning’s 



V papers the statement that the Government of 
the United States has paid to the two members of 
the Peace Commission entitled to receive money for 
their services $100,000 each for their six weeks’ 
work in Paris. 

I hope that this is true. I will allow myself the 
satisfaction of considering that it is true, and of 
treating it as a thing finished and settled. 

It is a precedent; and ought to be a welcome one 
to our country. A precedent always has a chance 
to be valuable (as well as the other way) ; and its 
best chance to be valuable (or the other way) is 
when it takes such a striking form as to fix a whole 
nation’s attention upon it. If it come justified out 
of the discussion which will follow, it will find a 
career ready and waiting for it. 

We realize that the edifice of public justice is built 
of precedents, from the ground upward ; but we do 
not always realize that all the other details of our 
civilization are likewise built of precedents. The 
changes also which they undergo are due to the in- 


( 216 ) 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


217 


trusion of new precedents, which hold their ground 
against opposition, and keep their place. A pre- 
cedent may die at birth, or it may live — it is mainly 
a matter of luck. If it be imitated once, it has a 
chance ; if twice a better chance ; if three times it is 
reaching a point where account must be taken of it ; 
if four, five, or six times, it has probably come to 
stay — for a whole century, possibly. If a town 
start a new bow, or a new dance, or a new temper- 
ance project, or a new kind of hat, and can get the 
precedent adopted in the next town, the career of 
that precedent is begun ; and it will be unsafe to bet 
as to where the end of its journey is going to be. It 
may not get this start at all, and may have no career ; 
but if a crown prince introduce the precedent, it will 
attract vast attention, and its chances for a career 
are so great as to amount almost to a certainty. 

For a long time we have been reaping damage 
from a couple of disastrous precedents. One is 
the precedent of shabby pay to public servants 
standing for the power and dignity of the Republic 
in foreign lands ; the other is a precedent condemn- 
ing them to exhibit themselves officially in clothes 
which are not only without grace or dignity, but are 
a pretty loud and pious rebuke to the vain and 
frivolous costumes worn by the other officials. To 
our day an American ambassador’s official costume 
remains under the reproach of these defects. At a 
public function in a European court all foreign rep 
resentatives except ours wear clothes which in some 


218 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


way distinguish them from the unofficial throng, and 
mark them as standing for their countries. But our 
representative appears in a plain black swallow-tail, 
which stands for neither country nor people. It 
has no nationality. It is found in all countries; it 
is as international as a night-shirt. It has no par- 
ticular meaning: but our Government tries to give it 
one ; it tries to make it stand for Republican Sim- 
plicity, modesty and unpretentiousness. Tries, and 
without doubt fails, for it is not conceivable that this 
loud ostentation of simplicity deceives any one. 
The statue that advertises its modesty with a fig- 
leaf really brings its modesty under suspicion. 
Worn officially, our nonconforming swallow-tail is a 
declaration of ungracious independence in the mat- 
ter of manners, and is uncourteous. It says to all 
around: “In Rome we do not choose to do as 
Rome does; we refuse to respect your tastes and 
your traditions; we make no sacrifices to any one’s 
customs and prejudices; we yield no jot to the 
courtesies of life; we prefer our manners, and in- 
trude them here.” 

That is not the true American spirit, and those 
clothes misrepresent us. When a foreigner comes 
among us and trespasses against our customs and 
our code of manners, we are offended, and justly so : 
but our Government commands our ambassadors to 
wear abroad an official dress which is an offense 
against foreign manners and customs; and the dis- 
credit of it falls upon the nation. 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


219 


We did not dress our public functionaries in un- 
distinguished raiment before Franklin’s time; and 
the change would not have come if he had been an 
obscurity. But he was such a colossal figure in the 
world that whatever he did of an unusukl nature 
attracted the world’s attention, and became a pre- 
cedent. In the case of clothes, the next representa- 
tive after him, and the next, had to imitate it. After 
that, the thing was custom : and custom is a petri- 
faction ; nothing but dynamite can dislodge it for a 
century. We imagine that our queer official cos- 
tumery was deliberately devised to symbolize our Re- 
publican Simplicity — a quality which we have never 
possessed, and are too old to acquire now, if we had 
any use for it or any leaning toward it. But it is 
not so ; there was nothing deliberate about it : it 
grew naturally and heedlessly out of the precedent 
set by Franklin. 

If it had been an intentional thing, and based 
upon a principle, it would not have stopped where 
it did : we should have applied it further. Instead 
of clothing our admirals and generals, for courts- 
martial and other public functions, in superb dress 
uniforms blazing with color and gold, the Govern- 
ment would put them in swallow-tails and white 
cravats, and make them look like ambassadors and 
lackeys. If I am wrong in making Franklin the 
father of our curious official clothes, it is no matter 
— he will be able to stand it. 

It is my opinion — and I make no charge for the 


220 Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 

suggestion — that, whenever we appoint an ambas- 
sador or a minister, we ought to confer upon him the 
temporary rank of admiral or general, and allow 
him to wear the corresponding uniform at public 
functions in foreign countries. I would recommend 
this for the reason that it is not consonant with the 
dignity of the United States of America that her 
representative should appear upon occasions of state 
in a dress which makes him glaringly conspicuous ; 
and that is what his present undertaker-outfit does 
when it appears, with its dismal smudge, in the 
midst of the butterfly splendors of a Continental 
court. It is a most trying position for a shy man, a 
modest man, a man accustomed to being like other 
people. He is the most striking figure present; 
there is no hiding from the multitudinous eyes. It 
would be funny, if it were not such a cruel spectacle, 
to see the hunted creature in his solemn sables 
scuffling around in that sea of vivid color, like a 
mislaid Presbyterian in perdition. We are all aware 
that our representative’s dress should not compel too 
much attention; for anybody but an Indian chief 
knows that that is a vulgarity. I am saying these 
things in the interest of our national pride and 
dignity. Our representative is the flag. He is the 
Republic. He is the United States of America. 
And when these embodiments pass by, we do not 
want them scoffed at; we desire that people shall 
be obliged to concede that they are worthily clothed, 
and politely. 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


221 


Our Government is oddly inconsistent in this mat- 
ter of official dress. When its representative is a 
civilian who has not been a soldier, it restricts him 
to the black swallow-tail and white tie ; but if he is a 
civilian who has been a soldier, it allows him to 
wear the uniform of his former rank as an official 
dress. When General Sickles was minister to Spain, 
he always wore, when on official duty, the dress 
uniform of a major-general. When General Grant 
visited foreign courts, he went handsomely and 
properly ablaze in the uniform of a full general, and 
was introduced by diplomatic survivals of his own 
Presidential Administration. The latter, by official 
necessity, went in the meek and lowly swallow-tail 
— a deliciously sarcastic contrast: the one dress 
representing the honest and honorable dignity of the 
nation; the other, the cheap hypocrisy of the Re- 
publican Simplicity tradition. In Paris our present 
representative can perform his official functions rep- 
utably clothed ; for he was an officer in the Civil 
War. In London our late ambassador was similarly 
situated; for he also was an officer in the Civil 
War. But Mr. Choate must represent the Great 
Republic — even at official breakfast at seven in the 
morning — in that same old funny swallow-tail. 

Our Government’s notions about proprieties of 
costume are indeed very, very odd — as suggested 
by that last fact. The swallow-tail is recognized the 
world over as not wearable in the daytime ; it is a 
night-dress, and a night-dress only — a night-shirt is 


222 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


not more so. Yet, when our representative makes 
an official visit in the morning, he is obliged by his 
Government to go in that night-dress. It makes the 
very cab-horses laugh. 

The truth is, that for a while during the present 
century, and up to something short of forty years 
ago, we had a lucid interval, and dropped the 
Republican Simplicity sham, and dressed our foreign 
representatives in a handsome and becoming official 
costume. This was discarded by and by, and the 
swallow-tail substituted. I believe it is not now 
known which statesman brought about this change ; 
but we all know that, stupid as he was as to diplo- 
matic proprieties in dress, he would not have sent his 
daughter to a state ball in a corn-shucking costume, 
nor to a corn-shucking in a state ball costume, to be 
harshly criticised as an ill-mannered offender against 
the proprieties of custom in both places. And we 
know another thing, viz. : that he himself would not 
have wounded the tastes and feelings of a family of 
mourners by attending a funeral in their house in a 
costume which was an offense against the dignities 
and decorum prescribed by tradition and sanctified 
by custom. Yet that man was so heedless as not to 
reflect that all the social customs of civilized peoples 
are entitled to respectful observance, and that no 
man with a right spirit of courtesy in him ever has 
any disposition to transgress these customs. 

There is still another argument for a rational 
diplomatic dress — a business argument. We are a 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


223 


trading nation; and our representative is our busi- 
ness agent. If he is respected, esteemed, and liked 
where he is stationed, he can exercise an influence 
which can extend our trade and forward our pros- 
perity. A considerable number of his business 
activities have their field in his social relations ; and 
clothes which do not offend against local manners 
and customs and prejudices are a valuable part of his 
equipment in this matter — would be, if Franklin had 
died earlier. 

I have not done with gratis suggestions yet. We 
made a great and valuable advance when we insti- 
tuted the office of ambassador. That lofty rank 
endows its possessor with several times as much in- 
fluence, consideration, and effectiveness as the rank 
of minister bestows. For the sake of the country’s 
dignity and for the sake of her advantage commer- 
cially, we should have ambassadors, not ministers, at 
the great courts of the world. 

But not at present salaries ! No ; if we are to 
maintain present salaries, let us make no more am- 
bassadors ; and let us unmake those we have already 
made. The great position, without the means of re- 
spectably maintaining it — there could be no wisdom 
in that. A foreign representative, to be valuable to 
his country, must be on good terms with the officials 
of the capital and with the rest of the influential folk. 
Pie must mingle with this society ; he cannot sit at 
home — it is not business, it butters no commercial 
parsnips. He must attend the dinners, banquets, 


224 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


suppers, balls, receptions, and must return these 
hospitalities. He should return as good as he gets, 
too, for the sake of the dignity of his country, and 
for the sake of Business. Have we ever had a min- 
ister or an ambassador who could do this on his 
salary? No — not once, from Franklin’s time to 
ours. Other countries understand the commercial 
value of properly lining the pockets of their repre- 
sentatives; but apparently our Government has not 
learned it. England is the most successful trader of 
the several trading nations ; and she takes good care 
of the watchmen who keep guard in her commercial 
towers. It has been a long time, now, since we 
needed to blush for our representatives abroad. It 
has become custom to send our fittest. We send 
men of distinction, cultivation, character — our 
ablest, our choicest, our best. Then we cripple 
their efficiency through the meagreness of their pay. 
Here is a list of salaries for English and American 
ministers and ambassadors : 


CITT. 

SAIiABIES. 

AMERICAN. 

ENGLISH. 

Paris ...... 

$17,500 

$45,000 

Berlin 

17,500 

40,000 

Vienna 

12,000 

40,000 

Constantinople 

10,000 

40,000 

St. Petersburg 

17,500 

39,000 

Rome ...... 

12,000 

35,000 

Washington 

— 

32,500 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


225 


Sir Julian Pauncefote, the English ambassador at 
Washington, has a very fine house besides — at no 
damage to his salary. 

English ambassadors pay no house-rent ; they live 
in palaces owned by England. Our representatives 
pay house-rent out of their salaries. You can judge 
by the above figures what kind of houses the United 
States of America has been used to living in abroad, 
and what sort of return-entertaining she has done. 
There is not a salary in our list which would properly 
house the representative receiving it, and, in addi- 
tion, pay $3,000 toward his family’s bacon and 
doughnuts — the strange but economical and custom- 
ary fare of the American ambassador’s household, 
except on Sundays, when petrified Boston crackers 
are added. 

The ambassadors and ministers of foreign nations 
not only have generous salaries, but their Govern- 
ments provide them with money wherewith to pay a 
considerable part of their hospitality bills. I believe 
our Government pays no hospitality bills except those 
incurred by the navy. Through this concession to 
the navy, that arm is able to do us credit in foreign 
parts; and certainly that is well and politic. But 
why the Government does not think it well and poli- 
tic that our diplomats should be able to do us like 
credit abroad is one of those mysterious inconsist- 
encies which have been puzzling me ever since I 
stopped trying to understand baseball and took up 
statesmanship as a pastime. 


226 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


To return to the matter of house-rent. Good 
houses, properly furnished, in European capitals, are 
not to be had at small figures. Consequently, our 
foreign representatives have been accustomed to live 
in garrets — sometimes on the roof. Being poor 
men, it has been the best they could do on the salary 
which the Government has paid them. How could 
they adequately return the hospitalities shown them ? 
It was impossible. It would have exhausted the 
salary in three months. Still, it was their official 
duty to entertain the influential after some sort of 
fashion ; and they did the best they could with their 
limited purse. In return for champagne they fur- 
nished lemonade ; in return for game they furnished 
ham ; in return for whale they furnished sardines ; in 
return for liquors they furnished condensed milk; 
in return for the battalion of liveried and powdered 
flunkeys they furnished the hired girl ; in return for 
the fairy wilderness of sumptuous decorations they 
draped the stove with the American flag; in return 
for the orchestra they furnished zither and ballads 
by the family; in return for the ball — but they 
didn’t return the ball, except in cases where the 
United States lived on the roof and had room. 

Is this an exaggeration? It can hardly be called 
that. I saw nearly the equivalent of it once, a good 
many years ago. A minister was trying to create 
influential friends for a project which might be worth 
ten millions a year to the agriculturists of the Re- 
public ; and our Government had furnished him ham 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


221 


and lemonade to persuade the opposition with. 
The minister did not succeed. He might not have 
succeeded if his salary had been what it ought to 
have been — $50,000 or $60,000 a year — but his 
chances would have been very greatly improved. 
And in any case, he and his dinners and his country 
would not have been joked about by the hard-hearted 
and pitied by the compassionate. 

Any experienced ‘ ‘ drummer ’ ’ will testify that, 
when you want to do business, there is no economy 
in ham and lemonade. The drummer takes his 
country customer to the theatre, the opera, the 
circus; dines him, wines him, entertains him all the 
day and all the night in luxurious style; and plays 
upon his human nature in all seductive ways. For he 
knows, by old experience, that this is the best way 
to get a profitable order out of him. He has his 
reward. All Governments except our own play the 
same policy, with the same end in view; and they 
also have their reward. But ours refuses to do 
business by business ways, and sticks to ham and 
lemonade. This is the most expensive diet known 
to the diplomatic service of the world. 

Ours is the only country of first importance that 
pays its foreign representatives trifling salaries. If 
we were poor, we could not find great fault with 
these economies, perhaps — at least one could find a 
sort of plausible excuse for them. But we are not 
poor ; and the excuse fails. As shown above, some 
of our important diplomatic representatives receive 


228 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


$12,000 ; others $17,500. These salaries are all ham 
and lemonade, and unworthy of the flag. When we 
have a rich ambassador in London or Paris, he lives 
as the ambassador of a country like ours ought to 
live, and it costs him $100,000 a year to do it. But 
why should we allow him to pay that out of his 
private pocket? There is nothing fair about it; and 
the Republic is no proper subject for any one’s 
charity. In several cases our salaries of $12,000 
should be $50,000; and all of the salaries of $17,- 
500 ought to be $75,000 or $100,000, since we pay 
no representative’s house-rent. Our State Depart- 
ment realizes the mistake which we are making, and 
would like to rectify it, but it has not the power. 

When a young girl reaches eighteen she is recog- 
nized as being a woman. She adds six inches to her 
skirt, she unplaits her dangling braids and balls her 
hair on top of her head, she stops sleeping with her 
little sister and has a room to herself, and becomes 
in many ways a thundering expense. But she is in 
society now ; and papa has to stand it. There is no 
avoiding it. Very well. The Great Republic length- 
ened her skirts last year, balled up her hair, and 
entered the world’s society. This means that, if 
she would prosper and stand fair with society, she 
must put aside some of her dearest and darlingest 
young ways and superstitions, and do as society 
does. Of course, she can decline if she wants to ; 
but this would be unwise. She ought to realize, 
now that she has “come out,’’ that this is a right 


Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 


229 


and proper time to change a part of her style. She 
is in Rome ; and it has long been granted that when 
one is in Rome it is good policy to do as Rome 
does. To advantage Rome? No — to advantage 
herself. 

If our Government has really paid representatives 
of ours on the Paris Commission $100,000 apiece 
for six weeks’ work, I feel sure that it is the best 
cash investment the nation has made in many years. 
For it seems quite impossible that, with that pre- 
cedent on the books, the Government will be able to 
find excuses for continuing its diplomatic salaries at 
the present mean figure. 

P, S . — Vienna, January 10 . — I see, by this 
morning’s telegraphic news, that I am not to be the 
new ambassador here, after all. This — well, I 
hardly know what to say. I — well, of course, I do 
not care anything about it ; but it is at least a sur- 
prise. I have for many months been using my in- 
fluence at Washington to get this diplomatic see 
expanded into an ambassadorship, with the idea, of 
course, th — But never mind. Let it go. It is of 
no consequence. I say it calmly; for I am calm. 
But at the same time — However, the subject has 
no interest for me, and never had. I never really 
intended to take the place, anyway — I made up my 
mind to it months and months ago, nearly a year. 
But now, while I am calm, I would like to say this — 
that so long as I shall continue to possess an Ameri- 
can’s proper pride in the honor and dignity of his 
16 


230 Diplomatic Pay and Clothes 

country, I will not take any ambassadorship in the 
gift of the flag at a salary short of $75,000 a year. 
If I shall be charged with wanting to live beyond my 
country’s means, I cannot help it. A country which 
cannot afford ambassador’s wages should be ashamed 
to have ambassadors. 

Think of a Seventeen-thousand-five-hundred-dollar 
ambassador! Particularly for America. Why, it is 
the most ludicrous spectacle, the most inconsistent and 
incongruous spectacle, contrivable by even the most 
diseased imagination. It is a billionaire in a paper 
collar, a king in a breechclout, an archangel in a tin 
halo. And, for pure sham and hypocrisy, the salary 
is just the match of the ambassador’s official clothes 
— that boastful advertisement of a Republican Sim- 
plicity which manifests itself at home in Fifty-thou- 
sand-dollar salaries to insurance presidents and rail- 
way lawyers, and in domestic palaces whose fittings 
and furnishings often transcend in costly display and 
splendor and richness the fittings and furnishings of 
the palaces of the sceptred masters of Europe ; and 
which has invented and exported to the Old World 
the palace-car, the sleeping-car, the tram-car, the 
electric trolley, the best bicycles, the best motor- 
cars, the steam-heater, the best and smartest systems 
of electric calls and telephonic aids to laziness and 
comfort, the elevator, the private bath-room (hot 
and cold water on tap), the palace-hotel, with its 
multifarious conveniences, comforts, shows, and 
luxuries, the — oh, the list is interminable I In a 


Diplomatic Pay and Oothes 


231 


word, Republican Simplicity found Europe with one 
shirt on her back, so to speak, as far as real luxuries, 
conveniences, and the comforts of life go, and has 
clothed her to the chin with the latter. We are the 
lavishest and showiest and most luxury-loving peo- 
ple on the earth ; and at our masthead we fly one 
true and honest symbol, the gaudiest flag the world 
has ever seen. Oh, Republican Simplicity, there 
are many, many humbugs in the world, but none to 
which you need take off four hat ! 


o 


IS HE LIVING OR IS HE DEAD 


I WAS spending the month of March, 1892, at 
Mentone, in the Riviera. At this retired spot 
one has all the advantages, privately, which are to 
be had at Monte Carlo and Nice, a few miles farther 
along, publicly. That is to say, one has the flood- 
ing sunshine, the balmy air, and the brilliant blue 
sea, without the marring additions of human pow- 
wow and fuss and feathers and display. Mentone is 
quiet, simple, restful, unpretentious; the rich and 
the gaudy do not come there. As a rule, I mean, 
the rich do not come there. Now and then a rich 
man comes, and I presently got acquainted with one 
of these. Partially to disguise him I will call him 
Smith. One day, in the H6tel des Anglais, at the 
second breakfast, he exclaimed : 

Quick ! Cast your eye on the man going out 
at the door. Take in every detail of him.’" 
“Why?” 

“ Do you know who he is? ” 

“Yes. He spent several days here before you 
came. He is an old, retired, and very rich silk 
manufacturer from Lyons, they say, and I guess he 

( 232 ) 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


233 


is alone in the world, for he always looks sad and 
dreamy, and doesn’t talk with anybody. His name 
is Th6ophile Magnan.” 

I supposed that Smith would now proceed to 
justify the large interest which he had shown in 
Monsieur Magnan; but instead he dropped into a 
brown study, and was apparently lost to me and to 
the rest of the world during some minutes. Now 
and then he passed his fingers through his flossy 
white hair, to assist his thinking, and meantime he 
allowed his breakfast to go on cooling. At last he 
said : 

“ No, it’s gone; I can’t call it back.” 

” Can’t call what back? ” 

“It’s one of Hans Andersen’s beautiful little 
stories. But it’s gone from me. Part of it is like 
this: A child has a caged bird, which it loves, but 
thoughtlessly neglects. The bird pours out its song 
unheard and unheeded; but in time, hunger and 
thirst assail the creature, and its song grows plain- 
tive and feeble and finally ceases — the bird dies. 
The child comes, and is smitten to the heart with 
remorse; then, with bitter tears and lamentations, 
it calls its mates, and they bury the bird with 
elaborate pomp and the tenderest grief, without 
knowing, poor things, that it isn’t children only who 
starve poets to death and then spend enough on 
their funerals and monuments to have kept them 
alive and made them easy and comfortable. Now — ” 

But here we were interrupted. About ten that 


234 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


evening I ran across Smith, and he asked me up to 
his parlor to help him smoke and drink hot Scotch. 
It was a cosy place, with its comfortable chairs, its 
cheerful lamps, and its friendly open fire of seasoned 
olive-wood. To make everything perfect, there was 
the muffled booming of the surf outside. After the 
second Scotch and much lazy and contented chat, 
Smith said : 

“Now we are properly primed — I to tell a 
curious history, and you to listen to it. It has been 
a secret for many years — a secret between me and 
three others ; but I am going to break the seal now. 
Are you comfortable ? ’ ’ 

“ Perfectly. Go on.” 

Here follows what he told me : 

‘ ‘ A long time ago I was a young artist — a very 
young artist, in fact — and I wandered about the 
country parts of France, sketching here and sketch- 
ing there, and was presently joined by a couple of 
darling young Frenchmen who were at the same kind 
of thing that I was doing. We were as happy as we 
were poor, or as poor as we were happy — phrase it 
to suit yourself. Claude Frere and Carl Boulanger 
— these are the names of those boys; dear, dear 
fellows, and the sunniest spirits that ever laughed at 
poverty and had a noble good time in all weathers. 

“ At last we ran hard aground in a Breton village, 
and an artist as poor as ourselves took us in and 
literally saved us from starving — Francois Millet — ” 
“ What ! the great Frangois Millet? ” 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


235 


“Great? He wasn’t any greater than we were, 
then. He hadn’t any fame, even in his own village; 
and he was so poor that he hadn’t anything to feed 
us on but turnips, and even the turnips failed us 
sometimes. We four became fast friends, doting 
friends, inseparables. We painted away together 
with all our might, piling up stock, piling up stock, 
but very seldom getting rid of any of it. We had 
lovely times together ; but, O my soul ! how we 
were pinched now and then ! 

“For a little over two years this went on. At 
last, one day, Claude said : 

“ ‘ Boys, we’ve come to the end. Do you under- 
stand that? — absolutely to the end. Everybody 
has struck — there’s a league formed against us. 
I’ve been all around the village and it’s just as I 
tell you. They refuse to credit us for another 
centime until all the odds and ends are paid up.’ 

“This struck us cold. Every face was blank 
with dismay. We realized that our circumstances 
were desperate, now. There was a long silence. 
Finally, Millet said with a sigh : 

“‘Nothing occurs to me — nothing. Suggest 
something, lads.’ 

“There was no response, unless a mournful 
silence may be called a response. Carl got up, and 
walked nervously up and down awhile, then said : 

“ ‘ It’s a shame! Look at these canvases: stacks 
and stacks of as good pictures as anybody in 
Europe paints — I don’t care who he is. Yes, and 


236 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


plenty of lounging strangers have said the same — 
or nearly that, anyway.’ 

“ ‘ But didn’t buy,’ Millet said. 

“‘No matter, they said it; and it’s true, too. 
Look at your ‘ ‘ Angelus ’ ’ there ! Will anybody 
tell me — ’ 

“‘Pah, Carl — my “Angelus’’! I was offered 
five francs for it.’ 

“ ‘ When?’ 

‘“Who offered it?’ 

‘ ‘ ‘ Where is he ? ’ 

“ ‘ Why didn’t you take it? ’ 

“‘Come — don’t all speak at once. I thought 
he would give more — I was sure of it — he looked 
it — so I asked him eight.’ 

“‘Well — and then?’ 

“ ‘ He said he would call again.’ 

“ ‘ Thunder and lightning! Why, Frangois — ’ 

“ ‘ Oh, I know — I know! It was a mistake, and 
I was a fool. Boys, I meant for the best; you’ll 
grant me that, and I — ’ 

“ ‘ Why, certainly, we know that, bless your dear 
heart; but don’t you be a fool again.’ 

“ ‘I? I wish somebody would come along and 
offer us a cabbage for it — you’d see ! ’ 

“‘A cabbage! Oh, don’t name it — it makes 
my mouth water. Talk of things less trying.’ 

“‘Boys,’ said Carl, "do these pictures lack 
merit? Answer me that.’ 


“ ‘No! ’ 



Is He Living or Is He Dead 237 

“‘Aren’t they of very great and high merit? 
Answer me that.’ 

“ ‘ Yes • 

“ ‘ Of such great and high merit that, if an illus- 
trious name were attached to them, they would sell 
at splendid prices. Isn’t it so? ’ 

Certainly it is. Nobody doubts that.’ 

“ ‘ But — I’m not joking — isn't it so? ’ 

“ ‘Why, of course it’s so — and we are not jok- 
ing. But what of it? What of it? How does that 
concern us? ’ 

“ ‘ In this way, comrades — we’ll attach an illus- 
trious name to them ! ’ 

“The lively conversation stopped. The faces 
were turned inquiringly upon Carl. What sort of 
riddle might this be ? Where was an illustrious name 
to be borrowed? And who was to borrow it? 

“ Carl sat down, and said: 

“ ‘ Now, I have a perfectly serious thing to pro- 
pose. I think it is the only way to keep us out of 
the almshouse, and I believe it to be a perfectly 
sure way. I base this opinion upon certain multi- 
tudinous and long-established facts in human history. 
I believe my project will make us all rich.’ 

“ ‘ Rich ! You’ve lost your mind.’ 

“ ‘No, I haven’t.’ 

“‘Yes, you have — you’ve lost your mind. 
What do you call rich ? ’ 

“ ‘ A hundred thousand francs apiece.’ 

“ ‘ He has lost his mind. I knew it.’ 


238 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


“‘Yes, he has. Carl, privation has been too 
much for you, and — ’ 

‘ ‘ ‘ Carl, you want to take a pill and get right to 
bed.’ 

“‘Bandage him first — bandage his head, and 
then — ’ 

“ ‘No, bandage his heels; his brains have been 
settling for weeks — I’ve noticed it.’ 

“ ‘ Shut up ! ’ said Millet, with ostensible severity, 
‘and let the boy say his say. Now, then — come 
out with your project, Carl. What is it? ’ 

“ ‘ Well, then, by way of preamble I will ask you 
to note this fact in human history: that the merit 
of many a great artist has never been acknowledged 
until after he was starved and dead. This has hap- 
pened so often that I make bold to found a law upon 
it. This law : that the merit of every great unknown 
and neglected artist must and will be recognized, 
and his pictures climb to high prices after his death. 
My project is this : we must cast lots — one of us 
must die.’ 

‘ ‘ The remark fell so calmly and so unexpectedly 
that we almost forgot to jump. Then there was a 
wild chorus of advice again — medical advice — for 
the help of Carl’s brain; but he waited patiently for 
the hilarity to calm down, then went on again with 
his project: 

Yes, one of us must die, to save the others — 
and himself We will cast lots. The one chosen 
shall be illustrious, all of us shall be rich. Hold 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


239 


still, now — hold still; don’t interrupt — I tell you 
I know what I am talking about. Here is the idea. 
During the next three months the one who is to die 
shall paint with all his might, enlarge his stock all 
he can — not pictures, no! skeleton sketches, 
studies, parts of studies, fragments of studies, a 
dozen dabs of the brush on each — meaningless, of 
course, but his with his cipher on them ; turn out 
fifty a day, each to contain some peculiarity or man- 
nerism easily detectable as his — they're the things 
that sell, you know, and are collected at fabulous 
prices for the world’s museums, after the great man 
is gone; we’ll have a ton of them ready — a ton ! 
And all that time the rest of us will be busy support- 
ing the moribund, and working Paris and the dealers 
— preparations for the coming event, you know ; and 
when everything is hot and just right, we’ll spring 
the death on them and have the notorious funeral. 
You get the idea? ’ 

“ ‘ N-o; at least, not qu — ' 

“ ‘ Not quite? Don’t you see? The man doesn’t 
really die; he changes his name and vanishes; we 
bury a dummy, and cry over it, with all the world to 
help. And I— ’ 

“But he wasn’t allowed to finish. Everybody 
broke out into a rousing hurrah of applause ; and all 
jumped up and capered about the room and fell on 
each other's necks in transports of gratitude and 
joy. For hours we talked over the great plan, with- 
out ever feeling hungry; and at last, when all the 


240 Is He Living or Is He Dead 

details had been arranged satisfactorily, we cast lots 
and Millet was elected — elected to die, as we called 
it. Then we scraped together those things which 
one never parts with until he is betting them against 
future wealth — keepsake trinkets and such like — 
and these we pawned for enough to furnish us a 
frugal farewell supper and breakfast, and leave us a 
few francs over for travel, and a stake of turnips and 
such for Millet to live on for a few days. 

“Next morning, early, the three of us cleared 
out, straightway after breakfast — on foot, of course. 
Each of us carried a dozen of Millet’s small pictures, 
purposing to market them. Carl struck for Paris, 
where he would start the work of building up Mil- 
let’s fame against the coming great day. Claude 
and I were to separate, and scatter abroad over 
France. 

“ Now, it will surprise you to know what an easy 
and comfortable thing we had. I walked two days 
before I began business. Then I began to sketch a 
villa in the outskirts of a big town — because I saw 
the proprietor standing on an upper veranda. He 
came down to look on — I thought he would. I 
worked swiftly, intending to keep him interested. 
Occasionally he fired off a little ejaculation of appro- 
bation, and by and by he spoke up with enthusiasm, 
and said I was a master ! 

“ I put down my brush, reached into my satchel, 
fetched out a Millet, and pointed to the cipher in 
the corner. I said, proudly: 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


241 


“‘I suppose you recognize thatf Well, he 
taught me ! I should think I ought to know my 
trade ! * 

“The man looked guiltily embarrassed, and was 
silent. I said, sorrowfully: 

“ ‘You don’t mean to intimate that you don’t 
know the cipher of Frangois Millet ! ’ 

“Of course he didn’t know that cipher; but he 
was the gratefulest man you ever saw, just the same, 
for being let out of an uncomfortable place on such 
easy terms. He said: 

“‘No! Why, it is Millet’s, sure enough I I 
don’t know what I could have been thinking of. 
Of course I recognize it now.’ 

‘ ‘ Next, he wanted to buy it ; but I said that 
although I wasn’t rich I wasn’t that poor. How- 
ever, at last, I let him have it for eight hundred 
francs.’’ 

“Eight hundred! ’’ 

“Yes. Millet would have sold it for a pork chop. 
Yes, I got eight hundred francs for that little thing. 
I wish I could get it back for eighty thousand. 
But that time’s gone by. I made a very nice picture 
of that man’s house, and I wanted to offer it to him 
for ten francs, but that wouldn’t answer, seeing I 
was the pupil of such a master, so I sold it to him 
for a hundred. I sent the eight hundred francs 
straight back to Millet from that town and struck out 
again next day. 

“ But I didn’t walk — no. I rode. I have ridden 


242 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


ever since. I sold one picture every day, and never 
tried to sell two. I always said to my customer: 

“ ‘ I am a fool to sell a picture of Frangois Mil- 
let’s at all, for that man is not going to live three 
months, and when he dies his pictures can’t be had 
for love or money.’ 

* ‘ I took care to spread that little fact as far as I 
could, and prepare the world for the event. 

“I take credit to myself for our plan of selling 
the pictures — it was mine. I suggested it that last 
evening when we were laying out our campaign, and 
all three of us agreed to give it a good fair trial be- 
fore giving it up for some other. It succeeded with 
all of us. I walked only two days, Claude walked 
two — both of us afraid to make Millet celebrated 
too close to home — but Carl walked only half a 
day, the bright, conscienceless rascal, and after that 
he traveled like a duke. 

‘ ‘ Every now and then we got in with a country 
editor and started an item around through the press ; 
not an item announcing that a new painter had been 
discovered, but an item which let on that everybody 
knew Francois Millet; not an item praising him in 
any way, but merely a word concerning the present 
condition of the ‘ master ’ — sometimes hopeful, 
sometimes despondent, but always tinged with fears 
for the worst. We always marked these paragraphs, 
and sent the papers to all the people who had 
bought pictures of us. 

“ Carl was soon in Paris, and he worked things 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


243 


with a high hand. He made friends with the cor- 
respondents, and got Millet’s condition reported to 
England and all over the continent, and America, 
and everywhere. 

‘ ‘ At the end of six weeks from the start, we three 
met in Paris and called a halt, and stopped sending 
back to Millet for additional pictures. The boom 
was so high, and everything so ripe, that we saw 
that it would be a mistake not to strike now, right 
away, without waiting any longer. So we wrote 
Millet to go to bed and begin to waste away pretty 
fast, for we should like him to die in ten days if he 
could get ready. 

“ Then we figured up and found that among us we 
had sold eighty-five small pictures and studies, and 
had sixty- nine thousand francs to show for it. Carl 
had made the last sale and the most brilliant one of 
all. He sold the ‘ Angelas ’ for twenty- two hundred 
francs. How we did glorify him ! — not foreseeing 
that a day was coming by and by when France would 
struggle to own it and a stranger would capture it 
for five hundred and fifty thousand, cash. 

‘ ‘ We had a wind-up champagne supper that 
night, and next day Claude and I packed up and 
went off to nurse Millet through his last days and 
keep busybodies out of the house and send daily 
bulletins to Carl in Paris for publication in the 
papers of several continents for the information of a 
waiting world. The sad end came at last, and Carl 
was there in time to help in the final mournful rites. 


244 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


“You remember that great funeral, and what a 
stir it made all over the globe, and how the illus- 
trious of two worlds came to attend it and testify 
their sorrow. We four — still inseparable — carried 
the coffin, and would allow none to help. And we 
were right about that, because it hadn’t anything in 
it but a wax figure, and any other coffin-bearers 
would have found fault with the weight. Yes, we 
same old four, who had lovingly shared privation 
together in the old hard times now gone forever, 
carried the cof — ’ ’ 

“ Which four? “ 

“ We four — for Millet helped to carry his own 
coffin. In disguise, you know. Disguised as a 
relative — distant relative. ’ ’ 

“ Astonishing ! “ 

“But true, just the same. Well, you remember 
how the pictures went up. Money? We didn’t 
know what to do with it. There’s a man in Paris 
to-day who owns seventy Millet pictures. He paid 
us two million francs for them. And as for the 
bushels of sketches and studies which Millet shoveled 
out during the six weeks that we were on the road, 
well, it would astonish you to know the figure we 
sell them at nowadays — that is, when we consent 
to let one go ! ’’ 

“ It is a wonderful history, perfectly wonderful ! ’ ’ 
“Yes — it amounts to that.’’ 

“ Whatever became of Millet? ’’ 

“ Can you keep a secret? ’* 


Is He Living or Is He Dead 


245 


« « T * * 

1 can. 

‘ ‘ Do you remember the man I called your atten- 
tion to in the dining-room to-day? That was 
Frangois Millet F 

“ Great—” 

‘‘Scott! Yes. For once they didn’t starve a 
genius to death and then put into other pockets the 
rewards he should have had himself. This song- 
bird was not allowed to pipe out its heart unheard 
and then be paid with the cold pomp of a big 
funeral. We looked out for that.” 


16 


MY BOYHOOD DREAMS 


IE dreams of my boyhood? No, they have not 



■ been realized. For all who are old, there is 
something infinitely pathetic about the subject which 
you have chosen, for in no gray-head’s case can it 
suggest any but one thing — disappointment. Dis- 
appointment is its own reason for its pain: the 
quality or dignity of the hope that failed is a matter 
aside. The dreamer’s valuation of a thing lost — 
not another man’s — is the only standard to measure 
it by, and his grief for it makes it large and great 
and fine, and is worthy of our reverence in all cases. 
We should carefully remember that. There are six- 
teen hundred million people in the world. Of these 
there is but a trifling number — in fact, only thirty- 
eight million — who can understand why a person 
should have an ambition to belong to the French 
army ; and why, belonging to it, he should be proud 
of that; and why, having got down that far, he 
should want to go on down, down, down till he 
struck bottom and got on the General Staff; and 
why, being stripped of his livery, or set free and 
reinvested with his self-respect by any other quick 


( 346 ) 


My Boyhood Dreams 


247 


and thorough process, let it be what it might, he 
should wish to return to his strange serfage. But 
no matter: the estimate put upon these things by 
the fifteen hundred and sixty millions is no proper 
measure of their value: the proper measure, the 
just measure, is that which is put upon them by 
Dreyfus, and is cipherable merely upon the littleness 
or the vastness of the disappointment which their 
loss cost him. 

There you have it : the measure of the magnitude 
of a dream-failure is the measure of the disappoint- 
ment the failure cost the dreamer; the value, in 
others’ eyes, of the thing lost, has nothing to do 
with the matter. With this straightening-out and 
classification of the dreamer’s position to help us, 
perhaps we can put ourselves in his place and re- 
spect his dream — Dreyfus’s, and the dreams our 
friends have cherished and reveal to us. Some that 
I call to mind, some that have been revealed to me, 
are curious enough; but we may not smile at them, 
for they were precious to the dreamers, and their 
failure has left scars which give them dignity and 
pathos. With this theme in my mind, dear heads that 
were brown when they and mine were young together 
rise old and white before me now, beseeching me to 
speak for them, and most lovingly will I do it. 

Howells, Hay, Aldrich, Matthews, Stockton, 
Cable, Remus — how their young hopes and am- 
bitions come flooding back to my memory now, out 
of the vague far past, the beautiful past, the 


248 


My Boyhood Dreams 


lamented past ! I remember it so well — that night 
we met together — it was in Boston, and Mr. Fields 
was there, and Mr. Osgood, and Ralph Keeler, and 
Boyle O’Reilly, lost to us now these many years — 
and under the seal of confidence revealed to each 
other what our boyhood dreams had been : dreams 
which had not as yet been blighted, but over which 
was stealing the gray of the night that was to come 
— a night which we prophetically felt, and this feel- 
ing oppressed us and made us sad. I remember that 
Howells’ s voice broke twice, and it was only with 
great difficulty that he was able to go on ; in the end 
he wept. For he had hoped to be an auctioneer. 
He told of his early struggles to climb to his 
goal, and how at last he attained to within a single 
step of the coveted summit. But there misfortune 
after misfortune assailed him, and he went down, 
and down, and down, until now at last, weary and 
disheartened, he had for the present given up the 
struggle and become editor of the Atlantic Monthly. 
This was in 1830. Seventy years are gone since, 
and where now is his dream ? It will never be ful- 
filled. And it is best so ; he is no longer fitted for 
the position ; no one would take him now ; even if 
he got it, he would not be able to do himself credit 
in it, on account of his deliberateness of speech and 
lack of trained professional vivacity; he would be 
put on real estate, and would have the pain of seeing 
younger and abler men intrusted with the furniture 
and other such goods — goods which draw a mixed 


My Boyhood Dreams 


249 


and intellectually low order of customers, who must 
be beguiled of their bids by a vulgar and specialized 
humor and sparkle, accompanied with antics. 

But it is not the thing lost that counts, but only the 
disappointmeiit the loss brings to the dreamer that 
had coveted that thing and had set his heart of 
hearts upon it; and when we remember this, a great 
wave of sorrow for Howells rises in our breasts, and 
we wish for his sake that his fate could have been 
different. 

At that time Hay’s boyhood dream was not yet 
past hope of realization, but it was fading, dimming, 
wasting away, and the wind of a growing apprehen- 
sion was blowing cold over the perishing summer of 
his life. In the pride of his young ambition he had 
aspired to be a steamboat mate ; and in fancy 
saw himself dominating a forecastle some day on the 
Mississippi and dictating terms to roustabouts in 
high and wounding tones. I look back now, from 
this far distance of seventy years, and note with sor- 
row the stages of that dream’s destruction. Hay’s 
history is but Howells’ s, with differences of detail. 
Hay climbed high toward his ideal; when success 
seemed almost sure, his foot upon the very gang- 
plank, his eye upon the capstan, misfortune came 
and his fall began. Down — down — down — ever 
down: Private Secretary to the President; Colonel 
in the field; Charg^ d’ Affaires in Paris; Charg6 
d’ Affaires in Vienna ; Poet; Editor of the Tribune • 
Biographer of Lincoln; Ambassador to England^ 


250 


My Boyhood Dreams 


and now at last there he lies — Secretary of State, 
Head of Foreign Affairs. And he has fallen like 
Lucifer, never to rise again. And his dream — 
where now is his dream? Gone down in blood and 
tears with the dream of the auctioneer. 

And the young dream of Aldrich — where is that? 
I remember yet how he sat there that night fondling 
it, petting it ; seeing it recede and ever recede ; try- 
ing to be reconciled and give it up, but not able yet 
to bear the thought ; for it had been his hope to be 
a horse-doctor. He also climbed high, but, like the 
others, fell; then fell again, and yet again, and 
again and again. And now at last he can fall no 
further. He is old now, he has ceased to struggle, 
and is only a poef. No one would risk a horse with 
him now. His dream is over. 

Has any boyhood dream ever been fulfilled? I 
must doubt it. Look at Brander Matthews. He 
wanted to be a cowboy. What is he to-day? 
Nothing but a professor in a university. Will he 
ever be a cowboy? It is hardly conceivable. 

Look at Stockton. What was Stockton’s young 
dream? He hoped to be a barkeeper. See where 
he has landed. 

Is it better with Cable? What was Cable’s young 
dream? To be ring-master in the circus, and swell 
around and crack the whip. What is he to-day? 
Nothing but a theologian and novelist. 

And Uncle Remus — what was his young dream? 
To be a buccaneer. Look at him now. 


My Boyhood Dreams 


251 


Ah, the dreams of our youth, how beautiful they 
are, and how perishable ! The ruins of these might- 
have-beens, how pathetic ! The heart-secrets that 
were revealed that night now so long vanished, how 
they touch me as I give them voice ! Those sweet 
privacies, how they endeared us to each other ! 
We were under oath never to tell any of these 
things, and I have always ke'pt that oath inviolate 
when speaking with persons whom I thought not 
worthy to hear them. 

Oh, our lost Youth — God keep its memory green 
in our hearts ! for Age is upon us, with the in- 
dignity of its infirmities, and Death beckons ! 


TO THE ABOVE OLD PEOPLE. 

Sleep ! for the Sun that scores another Day 
Against the Tale allotted You to stay. 

Reminding You, is Risen, and now 
Serves Notice — ah, ignore it while You may ! 

The chill Wind blew, and those who stood before 
The Tavern murmured, “ Having drunk his Score, 
Why tarries He with empty Cup? Behold, 

The Wine of Youth once poured, is poured no more. 

“ Come leave the Cup, and on the Winter’s Snow 
Your Summer Garment of Enjoyment throw : 

Your Tide of Life is ebbing fast, and it. 

Exhausted once, for You no more shall flow.” 


252 


My Boyhood Dreams 

While yet the Phantom of false Youth was mine, 

I heard a Voice from out the Darkness whine, 

“ O Youth, O whither gone? Return, 

And bathe my Age in thy reviving Wine.” 

In this subduing Draught of tender green 
And kindly Absinthe, with its wimpling Sheen 
Of dusky half-lights, let me drown 
The haunting Pathos of the Might-Have-Been. 

For every nickeled Joy, marred and brief. 

We pay some day its Weight in golden Grief 
Mined from our Hearts. Ah, murmur not — 
From this one-sided Bargain dream of no Relief ! 

The Joy of Life, that streaming through their Veins 
Tumultuous swept, falls slack — and wanes 
The Glory in the Eye — and one by one 
Life’s Pleasures perish and make place for Pains. 

Whether one hide in some secluded Nook — 
Whether at Liverpool or Sandy Hook — 

’Tis one. Old Age will search him out — and He 
He — He — when ready will know where to look. 

From Cradle unto Grave I keep a House 
Of Entertainment where may drowse 

Bacilli and kindred Germs — or feed — or breed 
Their festering Species in a deep Carouse. 

Think — in this battered Caravanserai, 

Whose Portals open stand all Night and Day, 

How Microbe after Microbe with his Pomp 
Arrives unasked, and comes to stay. 

Our ivory Teeth, confessing to the Lust 
Of masticating, once, now own Disgust 

Of Clay-plug’ d Cavities — full soon our Snags 
Are emptied, and our Mouths are filled with Dust. 


My Boyhood Dreams 


253 


Our Gums forsake the Teeth and tender grow, 

And fat, like over-ripened Figs — we know 
The Sign — the Riggs Disease is ours, and we 
Must list this Sorrow, add another Woe. 

Our Lungs begin to fail and soon we Cough, 

And chilly Streaks play up our Backs, and off 
Our fever’d Foreheads drips an icy Sweat — 

We scoffed before, but now we may not scoff. 

Some for the Bunions that afflict us prate 
Of Plasters unsurpassable, and hate 

To cut a Corn — ah cut, and let the Plaster go, 

Nor murmur if the Solace come too late. 

Some for the Honors of Old Age, and some 
Long for its Respite from the Hum 
And Clash of sordid Strife — O Fools, 

The Past should teach them what’s to Come : 

Lo, for the Honors, cold Neglect instead ! 

For Respite, disputatious Heirs a Bed 
Of Thorns for them will furnish. Go, 

Seek not Here for Peace — but Yonder — with the Dead. 

For whether Zal and Rustam heed this Sign, 

And even smitten thus, will not repine. 

Let Zal and Rustam shuffle as they may. 

The Fine once levied they must Cash the Fine. 

O Voices of the Long Ago that were so dear ! 

Fall’n Silent, now, for many a Mould’ring Year, 

O whither are ye flown? Come back. 

And break my Heart, but bless my grieving ear. 

Some happy Day my Voice will Silent fall. 

And answer not when some that love it call : 

Be glad for Me when this you note — and think 
I’ve found the Voices lost,, beyond the Pall. 


254 


My Boyhood Dreams 


So let me grateful drain the Magic Bowl 
That medicines hurt Minds and on the Soul 
The Healing of its Peace doth lay — if then 
Death claim me — Welcome be his Dole ! 

Sanna, Sweden, September \^th. 

Private . — If you don’t know what Riggs’s Disease of the Teeth is, 
the dentist will tell you. I’ve had it — and it is more than interesting. 

S. L. C. 

Editorial Note. 

Fearing that there might be some mistake, we submitted a proof of 
this article to the (American) gentlemen named in it, and asked them 
to correct any errors of detail that might have crept in among the facts. 
They reply with some asperity that errors cannot creep in among facts 
where there are no facts for them to creep in among; and that none are 
discoverable in this article, but only baseless aberrations of a disordered 
mind. They have no recollection of any such night in Boston, nor else- 
where; and in th^ir opinion there was never any such night. They 
have met Mr. Twain, but have had the prudence not to intrust any 
privacies to him — particularly under oath; and they think they now see 
that this prudence was justified, since he has been untrustworthy enough 
to even betray privacies which had no existence. Further they think 
it a strange thing that Mr. Twain, who was never invited to meddle with 
anybody’s boyhood dreams but his own, has been so gratuitously anxious 
to see that other people’s are placed before the world that he has quite 
lost his head in his zeal and forgotten to make any mention of his own at 
all. Provided we insert this explanation, they are willing to let his article 
pass; otherwise they must require its suppression in the interest of truth. 

P. S . — These replies having left us in some perplexity, and also in 
some fear lest they might distress Mr. Twain if published without his 
privity, we judged it but fair to submit them to him and give him an 
opportunity to defend himself. But he does not seem to be troubled, or 
even aware that he is in a delicate situation. He merely says : 

“ Do not worry about those former young people. They can write 
good literature, but when it comes to speaking the truth, they have not 
had my training. — Mark Twain.” 

The last sentence seems obscure, and liable to an unfortunate con- 
struction. It plainly needs refashioning, but we cannot take the responsi- 
bility of doing it. — Editor. 


THE AUSTRIAN EDISON KEEPING 
SCHOOL AGAIN 


B y a paragraph in the Freie Presse it appears that 
Jan Szczepanik, the youthful inventor of the 
“ telelectroscope ” (for seeing at great distances) 
and some other scientific marvels, has been having 
an odd adventure, by help of the state. 

Vienna is hospitably ready to smile whenever there 
is an opportunity, and this seems to be a fair one. 
Three or four years ago, when Szczepanik was 
nineteen or twenty years old, he was a schoolmaster 
in a Moravian village, on a salary of — I forget the 
amount, but no matter ; there was not enough of it 
to remember. His head was full of inventions, and 
in his odd hours he began to plan them out. He 
soon perfected an ingenious invention for applying 
photography to pattern-designing as used in the 
textile industries, whereby he proposed to reduce 
the customary outlay of time, labor, and money 
expended on that department of loom-work to next 
to nothing. He wanted to carry his project to 
Vienna and market it ; and as he could not get leave 
of absence, he made his trip without leave. This 

( 255 ) 


256 The Austrian Edison Keeping School Again 

lost him his place, but did not gain him his market. 
When his money ran out he went back home, and 
was presently reinstated. By and by he deserted 
once more, and went to Vienna, and this time he 
made some friends who assisted him, and his inven- 
tion was sold to England and Germany for a great 
sum. During the past three years he has been ex- 
perimenting and investigating in velvety comfort. 
His most picturesque achievement is his telelectro- 
scope, a device which a number of able men — in- 
cluding Mr. Edison, I think — had already tried their 
hands at, with prospects of eventual success. A 
Frenchman came near to solving the difficult and in- 
tricate problem fifteen years ago, but an essential 
detail was lacking which he could not master, and he 
suffered defeat. Szczepanik’s experiments with his 
pattern-designing project revealed to him the secret 
of the lacking detail. He perfected his invention, 
and a French syndicate has bought it, and saved it 
for exhibition and fortune-making at the Paris 
world’s fair. 

As a schoolmaster Szczepanik was exempt from 
military duty. When he ceased from teaching, be- 
ing an educated man he could have had himself en- 
rolled as a one-year volunteer; but he forgot to do 
it, and this exposed him to the privilege, and also 
the necessity, of serving three years in the army. 
In the course of duty, the other day, an official dis- 
covered the inventor’s indebtedness to the state, and 
took the proper measures to collect. At first there 


The Austrian Edison Keeping School Again 257 

seemed to be no way for the inventor (and the 
state) out of the difficulty. The authorities were 
loath to take the young man out of his great labora- 
tory, where he was helping to shove the whole 
human race along on its road to new prosperities and 
scientific conquests, and suspend operations in his 
mental Klondike three years, while he punched the 
empty air with a bayonet in a time of peace ; but 
there was the law, and how was it to be helped? It 
was a difficult puzzle, but the authorities labored at 
it until they found a forgotten law somewhere which 
furnished a loop-hole — a large one, and a long one, 
too, as it looks to me. By this piece of good luck 
Szczepanik is saved from soldiering, but he becomes 
a schoolmaster again; and it is a sufficiently pictur- 
esque billet, when you examine it. He must go back 
to his village every two months, and teach his school 
half a day — from early in the morning until noon; 
and, to the best of my understanding of the pub- 
lished terms, he must keep this up the rest of his 
life ! I hope so, just for the romantic poeticalness 
of it. He is twenty-four, strongly and compactly 
built, and comes of an ancestry accustomed to wait- 
ing to see its great-grandchildren married. It is 
almost certain that he will live to be ninety. I hope 
so. This promises him sixty-six years of useful 
school service. Dissected, it gives him a chance to 
teach school 396 half-days, make 396 railway trips 
going and 396 back, pay bed and board 396 times 
in the village, and lose possibly 1,200 days from his 


258 The Austrian Edison Keeping School Again 

laboratory work — that is to say, three years and 
three months or so. And he already owes three 
years to this same account. This has been over- 
looked; I shall call the attention of the authorities 
to it. It may be possible for him to get a compro- 
mise on this compromise by doing his three years in 
the army, and saving one; but I think it can’t hap- 
pen. This government “holds the age” on him; 
it has what is technically called a ‘ ‘ good thing ’ ’ in 
financial circles, and knows a good thing when it 
sees it. I know the inventor very well, and he has 
my sympathy. This is friendship. But I am 
throwing my influence with the government. This 
is politics. 

Szczepanik left for his village in Moravia day be- 
fore yesterday to “do time ’ ’ for the first time under 
his sentence. Early yesterday morning he started 
for the school in a fine carriage, which was stocked 
with fruits, cakes, toys, and all sorts of knick- 
knacks, rarities, and surprises for the children, and 
was met on the road by the school and a body of 
schoolmasters from the neighboring districts, march- 
ing in column, with the village authorities at the 
head, and was received with the enthusiastic welcome 
proper to the man who had made their village’s 
name celebrated, and conducted in state to the 
humble doors which had been shut against him as a 
deserter three years before. It is out of materials 
like these that romances are woven ; and when the 
romancer has done his best, he has not improved 


The Austrian Edison Keeping School Again 259 

upon the unpainted facts. Szczepanik put the sap- 
less school-books aside, and led the children a /loli- 
day dance through the enchanted lands of science 
and invention, explaining to them some of the 
curious things which he had contrived, and the laws 
which governed their construction and performance, 
and illustrating these matters with pictures and 
models and other helps to a clear understanding of 
their fascinating mysteries. After this there was 
play and a distribution of the fruits and toys and 
things; and after this, again, some more science, 
including the story of the invention of the telephone, 
and an explanation of its character and laws, for the 
convict had brought a telephone along. The 
children saw that wonder for the first time, and they 
also personally tested its powers and verified them. 
Then school ‘ ‘ let out ’ ’ ; the teacher got his certifi- 
cate, all signed, stamped, taxed, and so on, said 
good-by, and drove off in his carriage under a 
storm of Do widzenia Au revoir / '*) from 

the children, who will resume their customary 
sobrieties until he comes in August and uncorks his 
flask of scientific fire-water again. 


EXTRACTS FROM ADAM’S DIARY 


M ONDAY.-^ — This new creature with the long hair 
is a good deal in the way. It is always hang- 
ing around and following me about. I don’t like 
this; I am not used to company. I wish it would 
stay with the other animals. . . . Cloudy to-day, 
wind in the east; think we shall have rain. . . . 
We ? Where did I get that word ? — I remember 
now — the new creature uses it. 

Tuesday. — Been examining the great waterfall. 
It is the finest thing on the estate, I think. The 
new creature calls it Niagara Falls — why, I am sure 
I do not know. Says it looks like Niagara Falls. 
That is not a reason, it is mere waywardness and 
imbecility. I get no chance to name anything my- 
self. The new creature names everything that comes 
along, before I can get in a protest. And always 
that same pretext is offered — it looks like the thing. 
There is the dodo, for instance. Says the moment 
one looks at it one sees at a glance that it ‘ ‘ looks 
like a dodo.” It will have to keep that name, no 
doubt. It wearies me to fret about it, and it does 
no good, anyway. Dodo ! It looks no more like a 
dodo than I do. 

Wednesday. — Built me a shelter against the rain, 

(260) 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 


261 


but could not have it to myself in peace. The new 
creature intruded. When I tried to put it out it shed 
water out of the holes it looks with, and wiped it 
away with the back of its paws, and made a noise 
such as some of the other animals make when they 
are in distress. I wish it would not talk; it is 
always talking. That sounds like a cheap fling at 
the poor creature, a slur; but I do not mean it so. 
I have never heard the human voice before, and any 
new and strange sound intruding itself here upon the 
solemn hush of these dreaming solitudes offends my 
ear and seems a false note. And this new sound is so 
close to me ; it is right at my shoulder, right at my ear, 
first on one side and then on the other, and I am used 
only to sounds that are more or less distant from me. 

Friday. — The naming goes recklessly on, in 
spite of anything I can do. I had a very good 
name for the estate, and it was musical and pretty 
— Garden of Eden. Privately, I continue to call 
it that, but not any longer publicly. The new 
creature says it is all woods and rocks and scenery^ 
and therefore has no resemblance to a garden. 
Says it looks like a park, and does not look like 
anything but a park. Consequently, without con- 
sulting me, it has been new-named — Niagara 
Falls Park. This is sufficiently high-handed, it 
seems to me. And already there is a sign up: 

KEEP OFF 
THE GRASS 

My life is not as happy as it was. 

17 


262 


Extracts from Adam's Diary 


Saturday. — The new creature eats too much 
fruit. We are going to run short, most likely. 
“We” again — that is its word; mine, too, now, 
from hearing it so much. Good deal of fog this 
morning. I do not go out in the fog myself. The 
new creature does. It goes out in all weathers, and 
stumps right in with its muddy feet. And talks. It 
used to be so pleasant and quiet here. 

Sunday. — Pulled through. This day is getting 
to be more and more trying. It was selected and 
set apart last November as a day of rest. I had 
already six of them per week before. This morning 
found the new creature trying to clod apples out of 
that forbidden tree. 

Monday. — The new creature says its name is 
Eve. That is all right, I have no objections. Says 
it is to call it by, when I want it to come. I said it 
was superfluous, then. The word evidently raised 
me in its respect; and indeed it is a large, good 
word and will bear repetition. It says it is not an 
It, it is a She. This is probably doubtful; yet it is 
all one to me ; what she is were nothing to me if she 
would but go by herself and not talk. 

Tuesday. — She has littered the whole estate with 
execrable names and offensive signs : 

This way to the Whirlpool. 

This way to Goat Island. 

Cave of the Winds this way. 

She says this park would make a tidy summer 
resort if there was any custom for it. Summer 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 


263 


resort — another invention of hers — just words, 
without any meaning. What is a summer resort? 
But it is best not to ask her, she has such a rage for 
explaining. 

Friday. — She has taken to beseeching me to stop 
going oyer the Falls. What harm does it do? 
Says it makes her shudder. I wonder why; I 
have always done it — always liked the plunge, and 
the excitement and the coolness. I supposed it was 
what the Falls were for. They have no other use 
that I can see, and they must have been made for 
something. She says they were only made for 
scenery — like the rhinoceros and the mastodon. 

I went over the Falls in a barrel — not satisfactory 
to her. Went over in a tub — still not satisfactory. 
Swam the Whirlpool and the Rapids in a fig-leaf 
suit. It got much damaged. Hence, tedious com- 
plaints about my extravagance. I am too much 
hampered here. What I need is change of scene. 

Saturday. — I escaped last Tuesday night, and 
traveled two days, and built me another shelter in a 
secluded place, and obliterated my tracks as well as I 
could, but she hunted me out by means of a beast 
which she has tamed and calls a wolf, and came 
making that pitiful noise again, and shedding that 
water out of the places she looks with. I was 
obliged to return with her, but will presently emi- 
grate again when occasion offers. She engages her- 
self in many foolish things ; among others, to study 
out why the animals called lions and tigers live on 


264 


Extracts from Adam's Diary 


grass and flowers, when, as she says, the sort of teeth 
they wear would indicate that they were intended to 
eat each other. This is foolish, because to do that 
would be to kill each other, and that would introduce 
what, as I understand it, is called ‘ ‘ death ’ ’ ; and 
death, as I have been told, has not yet entered the 
Park. Which is a pity, on some accounts. 

Sunday. — Pulled through. 

Monday. — I believe I see what the week is for : 
it is to give time to rest up from the weariness of 
Sunday. It seems a good idea. . . . She has been 
climbing that tree again. Clodded her out of it. 
She said nobody was looking. Seems to consider 
that a sufficient justification for chancing any 
dangerous thing. Told her that. The word justi- 
fication moved her admiration — and envy, too, I 
thought. It is a good word. 

Tuesday. — She told me she was made out of a 
rib taken from my body. This is at least doubtful, 
if not more than that. I have not missed any rib. 

. . . She is in much trouble about the buzzard ; 
says grass does not agree with it; is afraid she can’t 
raise it; thinks it was intended to live on decayed 
flesh. The buzzard must get along the best it can 
with what it is provided. We cannot overturn the 
whole scheme to accommodate the buzzard. 

Saturday. — She fell in the pond yesterday when 
she was looking at herself in it, which she is always 
doing. She nearly strangled, and said it was most 
uncomfortable. This made her sorry for the crea- 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 


265 


tures which live in there, which she calls fish, for 
she continues to fasten names on to things that don’t 
need them and don’t come when they are called by 
them, which is a matter of no consequence to her, 
she is such a numskull, anyway; so she got a lot of 
them out and brought them in last night and put 
them in my bed to keep warm, but I have noticed 
them now and then all day and I don’t see that they 
are any happier there than they were before, only 
quieter. When night comes I shall throw them 
outdoors. I will not sleep with them again, for I 
find them clammy and unpleasant to lie among when 
a person hasn’t anything on. 

Sunday. — Pulled through. 

Tuesday. — She has taken up with a snake now. 
The other animals are glad, for she was always ex- 
perimenting with them and bothering them; and I 
am glad because the snake talks, and this enables me 
to get a rest. 

Friday. — She says the snake advises her to try 
the fruit of that tree, and says the result will be a 
great and fine and noble education. I told her there 
would be another result, too — it would introduce 
death into the world. That was a mistake — it had 
been better to keep the remark to myself; it only 
gave her an idea — she could save the sick buzzard, 
and furnish fresh meat to the despondent lions and 
tigers. I advised her to keep away from the tree. 
She said she wouldn’t. I foresee trouble. Will 
emigrate. 


266 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 


Wednesday. — I have had a variegated time. I 
escaped last night, and rode a horse all night as fast 
as he could go, hoping to get clear out of the Park 
and hide in some other country before the trouble 
should begin; but it was not to be. About an hour 
after sun-up, as I was riding through a flowery plain 
where thousands of animals were grazing, slumber- 
ing, or playing with each other, according to their 
wont, all of a sudden they broke into a tempest of 
frightful noises, and in one moment the plain was a 
frantic commotion and every beast was destroying 
its neighbor. I knew what it meant — Eve had 
eaten that fruit, and death was come into the world. 

. . . The tigers ate my horse, paying no attention 
when I ordered them to desist, and they would have 
eaten me if I had stayed — which I didn’t, but went 
away in much haste. ... I found this place, out- 
side the Park, and was fairly comfortable for a few 
days, but she has found me out. Found me out, 
and has named the place Tonawanda — says it looks 
like that. In fact I was not sorry she came, for 
there are but meagre pickings here, and she brought 
some of those apples. I was obliged to eat them, I 
was so hungry. It was against my principles, but I 
find that principles have no real force except when 
one is well fed. . . . She came curtained in boughs 
and bunches of leaves, and when I asked her what 
she meant by such nonsense, and snatched them 
away and threw them down, she tittered and 
blushed. I had never seen a person titter and blush 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 


267 


before, and to me it seemed unbecoming and idiotic. 
She said I would soon know how it was myself. 
This was correct. Hungry as I was, I laid down 
the apple half-eaten — certainly the best one I ever 
saw, considering the lateness of the season — and 
arrayed myself in the discarded boughs and 
branches, and then spoke to her with some severity 
and ordered her to go and get some more and not 
make such a spectacle of herself. She did it, and 
after this we crept down to where the wild-beast 
battle had been, and collected some skins, and I 
made her patch together a couple of suits proper for 
public occasions. They are uncomfortable, it is 
true, but stylish, and that is the main point about 
clothes. ... I find she is a good deal of a com- 
panion. I see I should be lonesome and depressed 
without her, now that I have lost my property. 
Another thing, she says it is ordered that we work 
for our living hereafter. She will be useful. I will 
superintend. 

Ten Days Later. — She accuses me of being the 
cause of our disaster! She says, with apparent 
sincerity and truth, that the Serpent assured her that 
the forbidden fruit was not apples, it was chestnuts. 
I said I was innocent, then, for I had not eaten any 
chestnuts. She said the Serpent informed her that 
‘ ‘ chestnut ’ ’ was a figurative term meaning an aged 
and mouldy joke. I turned pale at that, for I have 
made many jokes to pass the weary time, and some 
of them could have been of that sort, though I had 


268 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 


honestly supposed that they were new when I made 
them. She asked me if I had made one just at the 
time of the catastrophe. I was obliged to admit that 
I had made one to myself, though not aloud. It 
was this. I was thinking about the Falls, and I said 
to myself, “ How wonderful it is to see that vast 
body of water tumble down there ! ’ ’ Then in an 
instant a bright thought flashed into my head, and I 
let it fly, saying, “ It would be a deal more wonderful 
to see it tumble up there ! ” — and I was just about 
to kill myself with laughing at it when all nature 
broke loose in war and death and I had to flee for 
my life. “There,” she said, with triumph, “that 
is just it ; the Serpent mentioned that very jest, and 
called it the First Chestnut, and said it was coeval 
with the creation.” Alas, I am indeed to blame. 
Would that I were not witty ; oh, that I had never 
had that radiant thought ! 

Next Year. — We have named it Cain. She 
caught it while I was up country trapping on the 
North Shore of the Erie; caught it in the timber a 
couple of miles from our dug-out — or it might have 
been four, she isn’t certain which. It resembles us 
in some ways, and may be a relation. That is what 
she thinks, but this is an error, in my judgment. 
The difference in size warrants the conclusion that 
it is a different and new kind of animal — a fish, per- 
haps, though when I put it in the water to see, it 
sank, and she plunged in and snatched it out before 
there was opportunity for the experiment to deter- 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 


269 


mine the matter. I still think it is a fish, but she is 
indifferent about what it is, and will not let me have 
it to try. I do not understand this. The coming 
of the creature seems to have changed her whole 
nature and made her unreasonable about experi- 
ments. She thinks more of it than she does of any 
of the other animals, but is not able to explain why. 
Her mind is disordered — everything shows it. 
Sometimes she carries the fish in her arms half the 
night when it complains and wants to get to the 
water. At such times the water comes out of the 
places in her face that she looks out of, and she pats 
the fish on the back and makes soft sounds with her 
mouth to soothe it, and betrays sorrow and solicitude 
in a hundred ways. I have never seen her do like 
this with any other fish, and it troubles me greatly. 
She used to carry the young tigers around so, and 
play with them, before we lost our property, but it 
was only play ; she never took on about them like 
this when their dinner disagreed with them. 

Sunday. — She doesn’t work, Sundays, but lies 
around all tired out, and likes to have the fish wallow 
over her; and she makes fool noises to amuse it, 
and pretends to chew its paws, and that makes it 
laugh. I have not seen a fish before that could 
laugh. This makes me doubt. ... I have come 
to like Sunday myself. Superintending all the week 
tires a body so. There ought to be more Sundays. 
In the old days they were tough, but now they 
come handy. 


270 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 


Wednesday. — It isn’t a fish. I cannot quite 
make out what it is. It makes curious devilish 
noises when not satisfied, and says “goo-goo” 
when it is. It is not one of us, for it doesn’t walk; 
it is not a bird, for it doesn’t fly; it is not a frog, 
for it doesn’t hop; it is not a snake, for it doesn’t 
crawl ; I feel sure it is not a fish, though I cannot 
get a chance to find out whether it can swim or not. 
It merely lies around, and mostly on its back, with 
its feet up. I have not seen any other animal do 
that before. I said I believed it was an enigma ; but 
she only admired the word without understanding it. 
In my judgment it is either an enigma or some kind 
of a bug. If it dies, I will take it apart and see what 
its arrangements are. I never had a thing perplex 
me so. 

Three Months Later. — The perplexity aug- 
ments instead of diminishing. I sleep but little. It 
has ceased from lying around, and goes about on its 
four legs now. Yet it differs from the other four- 
legged animals, in that its front legs are unusually 
short, consequently this causes the main part of its 
person to stick up uncomfortably high in the air, and 
this is not attractive. It is built much as we are, 
but its method of traveling shows that it is not of 
our breed. The short front legs and long hind ones 
indicate that it is of the kangaroo family, but it is a 
marked variation of the species, since the true kan- 
garoo hops, whereas this one never does. Still it is 
a curious and interesting variety, and has not been 


271 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 

catalogued before. As I discovered it, I have felt 
justified in securing the credit of the discovery by 
attaching my name to it, and hence have called it 
Kangaroorum Adamiensis. ... It must have been 
a young one when it came, for it has grown exceed- 
ingly since. It must be five times as big, now, as it 
was then, and when discontented it is able to make 
from twenty-two to thirty-eight times the noise it 
made at first. Coercion does not modify this, but 
has the contrary effect. For this reason I discon- 
tinued the system. She reconciles it by persuasion, 
and by giving it things which she had previously told 
it she wouldn’t give it. As already observed, I was 
not at home when it first came, and she told me she 
found it in the woods. It seems odd that it should 
be the only one, yet it must be so, for I have worn 
myself out these many weeks trying to find another 
one to add to my collection, and for this one to play 
with; for surely then it would be quieter and we 
could tame it more easily. But I find none, nor any 
vestige of any; and strangest of all, no tracks. It 
has to live on the ground, it cannot help itself; 
therefore, how does it get about without leaving a 
track? I have set a dozen traps, but they do no 
good. I catch all small animals except that one; 
animals that merely go into the trap out of curiosity, 
I think, to see what the milk is there for. They 
never drink it. 

Three Months Later. — The Kangaroo still 
continues to grow, which is very strange and per- 


272 Extracts from Adam’s Diary 

plexing. I never knew one to be so long getting its 
growth. It has fur on its head now; not like 
kangaroo fur, but exactly like our hair except that 
it is much finer and softer, and instead of being 
black is red. I am like to lose my mind over the 
capricious and harassing developments of this un- 
classifiable zoological freak. If I could catch 
another one — but that is hopeless; it is a new 
variety, and the only sample; this is plain. But I 
caught a true kangaroo and brought it in, thinking 
that this one, being lonesome, would rather have 
that for company than have no kin at all, or any 
animal it could feel a nearness to or get sympathy 
from in its forlorn condition here among strangers 
who do not know its ways or habits, or what to do 
to make it feel that it is among friends ; but it was 
a mistake — it went into such fits at the sight of the 
kangaroo that I was convinced it had never seen one 
before. I pity the poor noisy little animal, but there 
is nothing I can do to make it happy. If I could 
tame it — but that is out of the question ; the more 
I try the worse I seem to make it. It grieves me to 
the heart to see it in its little storms of sorrow and 
passion. I wanted to let it go, but she wouldn’t 
hear of it. That seemed cruel and not like her ; and 
yet she may be right. It might be lonelier than 
ever ; for since I cannot find another one, how could 
it? 

Five Months Later.— It is not a kangaroo. 
No, for it supports itself by holding to her finger, 


273 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 

and thus goes a few steps on its hind legs, and then 
falls down. It is probably some kind of a bear; 
and yet it has no tail — as yet — and no fur, except 
on its head. It still keeps on growing — that is a 
curious circumstance, for bears get their growth 
earlier than this. Bears are dangerous — since our 
catastrophe — and I shall not be satisfied to have this 
one prowling about the place much longer without a 
muzzle on. I have offered to get her a kangaroo if 
she would let this one go, but it did no good — she 
is determined to run us into all sorts of foolish risks, 
I think. She was not like this before she lost her 
mind. 

A Fortnight Later. — I examined its mouth. 
There is no danger yet: it has only one tooth. It 
has no tail yet. It makes more noise now than it 
ever did before — and mainly at night. I have 
moved out. But I shall go over, mornings, to 
breakfast, and see if it has more teeth. If it gets a 
mouthful of teeth it will be time for it to go, tail or 
no tail, for a bear does not need a tail in order to be 
dangerous. 

Four Months Later. — I have been off hunting 
and fishing a month, up in the region that she calls 
Buffalo ; I don’t know why, unless it is because there 
are not any buffaloes there. Meantime the bear has 
learned to paddle around all by itself on its hind 
legs, and says “poppa” and “momma.” It is 
certainly a new species. This resemblance to words 
may be purely accidental, of course, and may have 


274 


Extracts from Adam's Diary 


no purpose or meaning; but even in that case it is 
still extraordinary, and is a thing which no other 
bear can do. This imitation of speech, taken 
together with general absence of fur and entire 
absence of tail, sufficiently indicates that this is a 
new kind of bear. The further study of it will be 
exceedingly interesting. Meantime I will go off on 
a far expedition among the forests of the north and 
make an exhaustive search. There must certainly be 
another one somewhere, and this one will be less 
dangerous when it has company of its own species. 
I will go straightway; but I will muzzle this one 
first. 

Three Months Later. — It has been a weary, 
weary hunt, yet I have had n.o success. In the 
meantime, without stirring from the home estate, she 
has caught another one ! I never saw such luck. 
I might have hunted these woods a hundred years, I 
never would have run across that thing. 

Next Day. — I have been comparing the new one 
with the old one, and it is perfectly plain that they 
are the same breed. I was going to stuff one of 
them for my collection, but she is prejudiced against 
it for some reason or other ; so I have relinquished 
the idea, though I think it is a mistake. It would 
be an irreparable loss to science if they should get 
away. The old one is tamer than it was and can 
laugh and talk like the parrot, having learned this, 
no doubt, from being with the parrot so much, and 
having the imitative faculty in a highly developed 


275 


Extracts from Adam’s Diary 

degree. I shall be astonished if it turns out to be 
a new kind of parrot; and yet I ought not to be 
astonished, for it has already been everything else it 
could think of since those first days when it was 
a fish. The new one is as ugly now as the old one 
was at first; has the same sulphur-and-raw-meat 
complexion and the same singular head without any 
fur on it. She calls it Abel. 

Ten Years Later. — They are boys ; we found it 
out long ago. It was their coming in that small, 
immature shape that puzzled us ; we were not used 
to it. There are some girls now. Abel is a good 
boy, but if Cain had stayed a bear it would have 
improved him. After all these years, I see that I 
was mistaken about Eve in the beginning ; it is better 
to live outside the Garden with her than inside it 
without her. At first I thought she talked too 
much ; but now I should be sorry to have that voice 
fall silent and pass out of my life. Blessed be the 
chestnut that brought us near together and taught 
me to know the goodness of her heart and the sweet- 
ness of her spirit ! 


THE DEATH DISK^ 


I 


HIS was in Oliver Cromwell’s time. Colonel 



■ Mayfair was the youngest officer of his rank 
in the armies of the Commonwealth, he being but 
thirty years old. But young as he was, he was a 
veteran soldier, and tanned and warworn, for he 
had begun his military life at seventeen; he had 
fought in many battles, and had won his high place 
in the service and in the admiration of men, step 
by step, by valor in the field. But he was in deep 
trouble now; a shadow had fallen upon his fortunes. 

The winter evening was come, and outside were 
storm and darkness ; within, a melancholy silence ; 
for the Colonel and his young wife had talked their 
sorrow out, had read the evening chapter and prayed 
the evening prayer, and there was nothing more to 
do but sit hand in hand and gaze into the fire, and 
think — and wait. They would not have to wait 
long; they knew that, and the wife shuddered at 
the thought. 

* The text for this story is a touching incident mentioned in Carlyle’s 
Letters and Speeches of Oliver Cromwell . — M. T. 


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They had one child — Abby, seven years old, their 
idol. She would be coming presently for the good- 
night kiss, and the Colonel spoke now, and said : 

“ Dry away the tears and let us seem happy, for 
her sake. We must forget, for the time, that which 
is to happen.'’ 

“ I will. I will shut them up in my heart, which 
is breaking.” 

” And we will accept what is appointed for us, 
and bear it in patience, as knowing that whatsoever 
He doeth is done in righteousness and meant in 
kindness — ’ ’ 

” Saying, His will be done. Yes, I can say it 
with all my mind and soul — I would I could say 
it with my heart. Oh, if I could ! if this dear hand 
which I press and kiss for the last time — ’ ’ 

” ’Sh! sweetheart, she is coming! ” 

A curly-headed little figure in nightclothes glided 
in at the door and ran to the father, and was gathered 
to his breast and fervently kissed once, twice, three 
times. 

‘‘Why, papa, you mustn’t kiss me like that: 
you rumple my hair.” 

‘‘ Oh, I am so sorry — so sorry: do you forgive 
me, dear? ” 

‘‘ Why, of course, papa. But are you sorry? — 
not pretending, but real, right down sorry? ” 

‘‘Well, you can judge for yourself, Abby,” and 
he covered his face with his hands and made believe 
to sob. The child was filled with remorse to see this 
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278 


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tragic thing which she had caused, and she began to 
cry herself, and to tug at the hands, and say : 

“ Oh, don’t, papa, please don’t cry; Abby didn’t 
mean it; Abby wouldn’t ever do it again. Please, 
papa!” Tugging and straining to separate the 
fingers, she got a fleeting glimpse of an eye behind 
them, and cried out: ‘‘Why, you naughty papa, 
you are not crying at all! You are only fooling! 
And Abby is going to mamma, now; you don’t 
treat Abby right. ’ ’ 

She was for climbing down, but her father wound 
his arms about her and said: ‘‘No, stay with me, 
dear: papa was naughty, and confesses it, and is 
sorry — there, let him kiss the tears away — and he 
begs Abby’s forgiveness, and will do anything Abby 
says he must do, for a punishment; they’re all 
kissed away now, and not a curl rumpled — and 
whatever Abby commands — ’ ’ 

And so it was made up ; and all in a moment the 
sunshine was back again and burning brightly in the 
child’s face, and she was patting her father’s cheeks 
and naming the penalty — ‘ ‘ A story ! a story ! ’ ’ 

Hark! 

The elders stopped breathing, and listened. Foot- 
steps ! faintly caught between the gusts of wind. 
They came nearer, nearer — louder, louder — then 
passed by and faded away. The elders drew deep 
breaths of relief, and the papa said : “A story, is 
it? A gay one?” 

“ No, papa: a dreadful one.” 


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Papa wanted to shift to the gay kind, but the child 
stood by her rights — as per agreement, she was to 
have anything she commanded. He was a good 
Puritan soldier and had passed his word — he saw 
that he must make it good. She said : 

“ Papa, we mustn’t always have gay ones. Nurse 
says people don’t always have gay times. Is that 
true, papa? She sajs so.” 

The mamma sighed, and her thoughts drifted to 
her troubles again. The papa said, gently: ‘‘It is 
true, dear. Troubles have to come; it is a pity, 
but it is true.” 

‘‘Oh, then tell a story about them, papa — a 
dreadful one, so that we’ll shiver, and feel just as if 
it was us. Mamma, you snuggle up close, and hold 
one of Abby’s hands, so that if it’s too dreadful it’ll 
be easier for us to bear it if we are all snuggled up 
together, you know. Now you can begin, papa.” 

‘‘ Well, once there were three Colonels — ” 

‘‘Oh, goody! /know Colonels, just as easy! 
It’s because you are one, and I know the clothes. 
Go on, papa.” 

‘ ‘ And in a battle they had committed a breach of 
discipline.” 

The large words struck the child’s ear pleasantly, 
and she looked up, full of wonder and interest, and 
said: 

” Is it something good to eat, papa? ” 

The parents almost smiled, and the father 
answered : 

R — 28 


280 


The Death Disk 


“No, quite another matter, dear. They ex- 
ceeded their orders. “ 

‘ ‘ Is that someth — ’ ' 

“ No; it’s as uneatable as the other. They were 
ordered to feign an attack on a strong position in a 
losing fight, in order to draw the enemy about and 
give the Commonwealth’s forces a chance to retreat; 
but in their enthusiasm they overstepped their 
orders, for they turned the feint into a fact, and 
carried the position by storm, and won the day and 
the battle. The Lord General was very angry at 
their disobedience, and praised them highly, and 
ordered them to London to be tried for their lives.’’ 

“ Is it the great General Cromwell, papa? ’’ 

“Yes.” 

“ Oh, I’ve seen him^ papa ! and when he goes by 
our house so grand on his big horse, with the 
soldiers, he looks so — so — well, I don’t know just 
how, only he looks as if he isn’t satisfied, and you 
can see the people are afraid of him; hvXFm not 
afraid of him, because he didn’t look like that at 
me. 

‘ ‘ Oh, you dear prattler ! Well, the Colonels 
came prisoners to London, and were put upon their 
honor, and allowed to go and see their families for 
the last — ■ ’ ’ 

Hark ! 

They listened. Footsteps again; but again they 
passed by. The mamma leaned her head upon her 
husband’s shoulder to hide her paleness. 


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They arrived this morning. ’ ’ 

The child’s eyes opened wide. 

“ Why, papa ! is it a true story? ” 

“ Yes, dear.” 

” Oh, how good ! Oh, it's ever so much better ! 
Go on, papa. Why, mamma! — dear mamma, are 
you crying? ” 

‘‘ Never mind me, dear — I was thinking of the — 
of the — the poor families.” 

” But don't cry, mamma: it’ll all come out right 
— you’ll see; stories always do. Go on, papa, to 
where they lived happy ever after; then she won’t 
cry any more. You’ll see, mamma. Go on, papa.” 

‘ ‘ First, they took them to the Tower before they 
let them go home.” 

” Oh, / know the Tower! We can see it from 
here. Go on, papa.” 

” I am going on as well as I can, in the circum- 
stances. In the Tower the military court tried them 
for an hour, and found them guilty, and condemned 
them to be shot.” 

‘ ‘ Killed, papa ? ’ ’ 

“Yes.” 

” Oh, how naughty ! Dear mamma, you are cry- 
ing again. Don’t, mamma; it’ll soon come to the 
good place — you’ll see. Hurry, papa, for mam- 
ma’s sake; you don’t go fast enough.” 

‘‘I know I don’t, but I suppose it is because I 
stop so much to reflect.” 

‘‘ But you mustn’t do it, papa; you must go right 
) > 


on. 


282 


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“ Very well, then. The three Colonels — ’* 

“ Do you know them, papa? ” 

“Yes, dear.” 

“Oh, I wish I did! I love Colonels. Would 
they let me kiss them, do you think?” The 
Colonel’s voice was a little unsteady when he 
answered — 

“ One of them would, my darling! There — kiss 
me for him.” 

“ There, papa — and these two are for the others. 
I think they would let me kiss them, papa; for I 
would say, ‘ My papa is a Colonel, too, and brave, 
and he would do what you did; so it can't be 
wrong, no matter what those people say, and you 
needn’t be the least bit ashamed ; ’ then they would 
let me, — wouldn’t they, papa? ” 

“ God knows they would, child ! ” 

“Mamma! — oh, mamma, you mustn’t. He’s 
soon coming to the happy place; go on, papa.” 

“Then, some were sorry — they all were; that 
military court, I mean ; and they went to the Lord 
General, and said they had done their duty — for it 
was their duty, you know — and now they begged 
that two of the Colonels might be spared, and only 
the other one shot. One would be sufficient for an 
example for the army, they thought. But the Lord 
General was very stern, and rebuked them foras- 
much as, having done their duty and cleared their 
consciences, they would beguile him to do less, and 
so smirch his soldierly honor. But they answered 


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283 


that they were asking nothing of him that they 
would not do themselves if they stood in his great 
place and held in their hands the noble prerogative 
of mercy. That struck him, and he paused and 
stood thinking, some of the sternness passing out of 
his face. Presently he bid them wait, and he retired 
to his closet to seek counsel of God in prayer; and 
when he came again, he said: * They shall cast lots. 
That shall decide it, and two of them shall live.’ ” 

“ And did they, papa, did they? And which one 
is to die? — ah, that poor man! ” 

“No. They refused.” 

“ They wouldn’t do it, papa? ” 

“No.” 

“Why?” 

‘ ‘ They said that the one that got the fatal bean 
would be sentencing himself to death by his own 
voluntary act, and it would be but suicide, call it by 
what name one might. They said they were Chris- 
tians, and the Bible forbade men to take their own 
lives. They sent back that word, and said they were 
ready — let the court’s sentence be carried into effect.” 
“ What does that mean, papa? ” 

“ They — they will all be shot.” 

Hark! 

The wind? No. Tramp — tramp — tramp — 
r-r-r-umble-dumdum, r-r-rumble-dumdum — 

“ Open — in the Lord General’s name ! ” 

“ Oh, goody, papa, it’s the soldiers ! — I love the 
soldiers ! Let me let them in, papa, let me!'' 


284 


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She jumped down, and scampered to the door 
and pulled it open, crying joyously: “Come in! 
come in ! Here they are, papa I Grenadiers ! I 
know the Grenadiers ! ’ * 

The file marched in and straightened up in line at 
shoulder arms; its officer saluted, the doomed 
Colonel standing erect and returning the courtesy, 
the soldier wife standing at his side, white, and with 
features drawn with inward pain, but giving no 
other sign of her misery, the child gazing on the 
show with dancing eyes. . . . 

One long embrace, of father, mother, and child ; 
then the order, “To the Tower — forward I “ 
Then the Colonel marched forth from the house 
with military step and bearing, the file following; 
then the door closed. 

“Oh, mamma, didn’t it come out beautiful! I 
told you it would; and they’re going to the Tower, 
and he’ll see them ! He — ’’ 

“ Oh, come to my arms, you poor innocent 
thing!’’ .... 


II 

The next morning the stricken mother was not 
able to leave her bed ; doctors and nurses were 
watching by her, and whispering together now and 
then ; Abby could not be allowed in the room ; she 
was told to run and play — mamma was very ill. 
The child, muffled in winter wraps, went out and 
played in the street awhile; then it struck her as 


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285 


strange, and also wrong, that her papa should be 
allowed to stay at the Tower in ignorance at such a 
time as this. This must be remedied; she would 
attend to it in person. 

An hour later the military court were ushered into 
the presence of the Lord General. He stood grim 
and erect, with his knuckles resting upon the table, 
and indicated that he was ready to listen. The 
spokesman said: “We have urged them to recon- 
sider; we have implored them: but they persist. 
They will not cast lots. They are willing to die, 
but not to defile their religion.” 

The Protector’s face darkened, but he said noth- 
ing. He remained a time in thought, then he said : 
‘ ‘ They shall not all die ; the lots shall be cast for 
them.” Gratitude shone in the faces of the court. 
“ Send for them. Place them in that room there. 
Stand them side by side with their faces to the wall 
and their wrists crossed behind them. Let me have 
notice when they are there.” 

When he was alone he sat down, and presently 
gave this order to an attendant: “Go, bring me the 
first little child that passes by.” 

The man was hardly out at the door before he was 
back again — leading Abby by the hand, her gar- 
ments lightly powdered with snow. She went 
straight to the Head of the State, that formidable 
personage at the mention of whose name the princi- 
palities and powers of the earth trembled, and 
climbed up in his lap, and said : 


286 


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‘ ‘ I know youy sir : you are the Lord General ; I 
have seen you ; I have seen you when you went by 
my house. Everybody was afraid; but / wasn’t 
afraid, because you didn’t look cross at me ; you 
remember, don’t you? I had on my red frock — 
the one with the blue things on it down the front. 
Don’t you remember that? ” 

A smile softened the austere lines of the Pro- 
tector’s face, and he began to struggle diplomatically 
with his answer : 

‘ ‘ Why, let me see — I — ” 

“ I was standing right by the house — my house, 
you know.” 

‘‘Well, you dear little thing, I ought to be 
ashamed, but you know — ” 

The child interrupted, reproachfully: 

‘‘Now you don't remember it. Why, I didn’t 
forget you." 

‘ ‘ Now I am ashamed : but I will never forget you 
again, dear; you have my word for it. You will 
forgive me now, won’t you, and be good friends 
with me, always and forever? ” 

‘‘Yes, indeed I will, though I don’t know how 
you came to forget it ; you must be very forgetful : 
but I am too, sometimes. I can forgive you with- 
out any trouble, for I think you mean to be good 
and do right, and I think you are just as kind — but 
you must snuggle me better, the way papa does — 
it’s cold.” 

‘‘You shall be snuggled to your heart’s content, 


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little new friend of mine, always to be old friend of 
mine hereafter, isn’t it? You mind me of my little 
girl — not little any more, now — but she was dear, 
and sweet, and daintily made, like you. And she 
had your charm, little witch — your all-conquering 
sweet confidence in friend and stranger alike, that 
wins to willing slavery any upon whom its precious 
compliment falls. She used to lie in my arms, just 
as you are doing now ; and charm the weariness and 
care out of my heart and give it peace, just as 
you are doing now; and we were comrades, and 
equals, and playfellows together. Ages ago it 
was, since that pleasant heaven faded away and 
vanished, and you have brought it back again; — 
take a burdened man’s blessing for it, you tiny 
creature, who are carrying the weight of England 
while I rest ! ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ Did you love her very, very, very much ? ’ ’ 

“Ah, you shall judge by this: she commanded 
and I obeyed ! ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ I think you are lovely ! Will you kiss me ? ’ ’ 

“Thankfully — and hold it a privilege, too. 
There — this one is for you; and there — this one 
is for her. You made it a request; and you could 
have made it a command, for you are representing 
her, and what you command I must obey.’’ 

The child clapped her hands with delight at the 
idea of this grand promotion — then her ear caught 
an approaching .sound: the measured tramp of 
marching men. 


288 


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“ Soldiers ! — soldiers, Lord General ! Abby 
wants to see them ! ’ ’ 

“You shall, dear; but wait a moment, I have a 
commission for you.” 

An officer entered and bowed low, saying, “ They 
are come, your Highness,” bowed again, and retired. 

The Head of the Nation gave Abby three little 
disks of sealing-wax ; two white, and one a ruddy 
red — for this one’s mission was to deliver death to 
the Colonel who should get it. 

“ Oh, what a lovely red one ! Are they for me? ” 

“ No, dear; they are for others. Lift the corner 
of that curtain, there, which hides an open door; 
pass through, and you will see three men standing 
in a row, with their backs toward you and their 
hands behind their backs — so — each with one hand 
open, like a cup. Into each of the open hands drop 
one of those things, then come back to me.” 

Abby disappeared behind the curtain, and the 
Protector was alone. He said, reverently: “ Of a 
surety that good thought came to me in my per- 
plexity from Him who is an ever present help to 
them that are in doubt and seek His aid. He 
knoweth where the choice should fall, and has sent 
His sinless messenger to do His will. Another 
would err, but He cannot err. Wonderful are His 
ways, and wise — blessed be His holy Name! ” 

The small fairy dropped the curtain behind her 
and stood for a moment conning with alert curiosity 
the appointments of the chamber of doom, and the 


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289 


rigid figures of the soldiery and the prisoners ; then 
her face lighted merrily, and she said to herself: 

Why, one of them is papa ! I know his back. 
He shall have the prettiest one ! ’ ’ She tripped 
gayly forward and dropped the disks into the open 
hands, then peeped around under her father's arm 
and lifted her laughing face and cried out : 

“Papa! papa! look what you’ve got. /gave it 
to you ! ’’ 

He glanced at the fatal gift, then sunk to his 
knees and gathered his innocent little executioner to 
his breast in an agony of love and pity. Soldiers, 
officers, released prisoners, all stood paralyzed, for 
a moment, at the vastness of this tragedy, then the 
pitiful scene smote their hearts, their eyes filled, and 
they wept unashamed. There was deep and rever- 
ent silence during some minutes, then the officer of 
the guard moved reluctantly forward and touched 
his prisoner on the shoulder, saying, gently: 

“ It grieves me, sir, but my duty commands.” 

“ Commands what? ” said the child. 

“ I must take him away. I am so sorry.” 

“ Take him away? Where? ” 

“To — to — God help me ! — to another part of 
the fortress.” 

“Indeed you can’t. My mamma is sick, and I 
am going to take him home.” She released herself 
and climbed upon her father’s back and put her 
arms around his neck. “ Now Abby’s ready, papa 
— come along.” 


290 


The Death Disk 


“ My poor child, I can’t. I must go with them.” 

The child jumped to the ground and looked about 
her, wondering. Then she ran and stood before the 
officer and stamped her small foot indignantly and 
cried out: 

‘ ‘ I told you my mamma is sick, and you might 
have listened. Let him go — you must ! ” 

” Oh, poor child, would God I could, but indeed 
I must take him away. Attention, guard ! . . . . 
fall in ! . . . . shoulder arms !”.... 

Abby was gone — like a flash of light. In a 
moment she was back, dragging the Lord Protector 
by the hand. At this formidable apparition all 
present straightened up, the officers saluting and the 
soldiers presenting arms. 

” Stop them, sir! My mamma is sick and wants 
my papa, and I told them so, but they never even 
listened to me, and are taking him away.” 

The Lord General stood as one dazed. 

” Your papa, child? Is he your papa? ” 

‘‘Why, of course — he was always it. Would I 
give the pretty red one to any other, when I love 
him so? No ! ” 

A shocked expression rose in the Protector’s face, 
and he said : 

‘‘ Ah, God help me I through Satan’s wiles I have 
done the cruelest thing that ever man did — and 
there is no help, no help I What can I do? ” 

Abby cried out, distressed and impatient: ‘‘ Why, 
you can make them let him go,” and she began to 


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291 


sob. “Tell them to do it! You told me to com- 
mand, and now the very first time I tell you to do a 
thing you don’t do it! “ 

A tender light dawned in the rugged old face, and 
the Lord General laid his hand upon the small 
tyrant’s head and said: “God be thanked for the 
saving accident of that unthinking promise; and 
you, inspired by Him, for reminding me of my for- 
gotten pledge, O incomparable child ! Officer, 
obey her command — she speaks by my mouth. 
The prisoner is pardoned ; set him free ! ’ ’ 


WE OUGHT NEVER TO DO WRONG WHEN 
PEOPLE ARE LOOKING 


A DOUBLE-BARRELED DETECTIVE 
STORY 


CHAPTER 1. 

T he first scene is in the country, in Virginia ; the 
time, 1880. There has been a wedding, be- 
tween a handsome young man of slender means and 
a rich young girl — a case of love at first sight and a 
precipitate marriage ; a marriage bitterly opposed by 
the girl’s widowed father. 

Jacob Fuller, the bridegroom, is twenty-six years 
old, is of an old but unconsidered family which had 
by compulsion emigrated from Sedgemoor, and for 
King James’s purse’s profit, so everybody said — 
some maliciously, the rest merely because they be- 
lieved it. The bride is nineteen and beautiful. She 
is intense, high-strung, romantic, immeasurably 
proud of her Cavalier blood, and passionate in her 
love for her young husband. For its sake she 
braved her father’s displeasure, endured his re- 
proaches, listened with loyalty unshaken to his warn- 
ing predictions, and went from his house without his 
19 ( 293 ) 


294 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


blessing, proud and happy in the proofs she was 
thus giving of the quality of the affection which had 
made its home in her heart. 

The morning after the marriage there was a sad 
surprise for her. Her husband put aside her prof- 
fered caresses, and said : 

“ Sit down. I have something to say to you. I 
loved you. That was before I asked your father to 
give you to me. His refusal is not my grievance — 
I could have endured that. But the things he said 
of me to you — that is a different matter. There — 
you needn’t speak; I know quite well what they 
were; I got them from authentic sources. Among 
other things he said that my character was written in 
my face; that I was treacherous, a dissembler, a 
coward, and a brute without sense of pity or com- 
passion: the ‘ Sedgemoor trade-mark,’ he called it 
— and ‘ white-sleeve badge.’ Any other man in my 
place would have gone to his house and shot him 
down like a dog. I wanted to do it, and was minded 
to do it, but a better thought came to me : to put him 
to shame; to break his heart; to kill him by inches. 
How to do it? Through my treatment of you, his 
idol ! I would marry you ; and then — Have 
patience. You will see.” 

From that moment onward, for three months, the 
young wife suffered all the humiliations, all the in- 
sults, all the miseries that the diligent and inventive 
mind of the husband could contrive, save physical 
injuries only. Her strong pride stood by her, and 


295 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

she kept the secret of her troubles. Now and then 
the husband said, “Why don’t you go to your 
father and tell him ? ’ ’ Then he invented new tor- 
tures, applied them, and asked again. She always 
answered, “He shall never know by my mouth,” 
and taunted him with his origin; said she was the 
lawful slave of a scion of slaves, and must obey, and 
would — up to that point, but no further ; he could 
kill her if he liked, but he could not break her; it 
was not in the Sedgemoor breed to do it. At the 
end of the three months he said, with a dark signifi- 
cance in his manner, ‘ ‘ I have tried all things but 
one” — and waited for her reply. “Try that,” 
she said, and curled her lip in mockery. 

That night he rose at midnight and put on his 
clothes, then said to her, 

‘ ‘ Get up and dress ! ’ ’ 

She obeyed — as always, without a word. He 
led her half a mile from the house, and proceeded to 
lash her to a tree by the side of the public road ; 
and succeeded, she screaming and struggling. He 
gagged her then, struck her across the face with his 
cowhide, and set his bloodhounds on her. They 
tore the clothes off her, and she was naked. He 
called the dogs off, and said : 

“You will be found — by the passing public. 
They will be dropping along about three hours 
from now, and will spread the news — do you hear? 
Good-by. You have seen the last of me.” 

He went away then. She moaned to herself : 


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A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


“I shall bear a child — to him! God grant it 
may be a boy ! ’ * 

The farmers released her by and by — and spread 
the news, which was natural. They raised the 
country with lynching intentions, but the bird had 
flown. The young wife shut herself up in her 
father’s house; he shut himself up with her, and 
thenceforth would see no one. His pride was 
broken, and his heart; so he wasted away, day by 
day, and even his daughter rejoiced when death re- 
lieved him. 

Then she sold the estate and disappeared. 


CHAPTER II. 


I N 1886 a young woman was living in a modest 
house near a secluded New England village, with 
no company but a little boy about five years old. 
She did her own work, she discouraged acquaint- 
anceships, and had none. The butcher, the baker, 
and the others that served her could tell the villagers 
nothing about her further than that her name was 
Stillman, and that she called the child Archy. 
Whence she came they had not been able to find 
out, but they said she talked like a Southerner. 
The child had no playmates and no comrade, and 
no teacher but the mother. She taught him dili- 
gently and intelligently, and was satisfied with the 
results — even a little proud of them. One day 
Archy said, 

“ Mamma, am I different from other children? ” 
“Well, I suppose not. Why?“ 

‘ ‘ There was a child going along out there and 
asked me if the postman had been by and I said yes, 
and she said how long since I saw him and I said I 
hadn't seen him at all, and she said how did I know 
he’d been by, then, and I said because I smelt his 
track on the sidewalk, and she said I was a dum 

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298 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

fool and made a mouth at me. What did she do 
that for?’^ 

The young woman turned white, and said to her- 
self, “It’s a birthmark! The gift of the blood- 
hound is in him.” She snatched the boy to her 
breast and hugged him passionately, saying, “God 
has appointed the way 1 ’ ’ Her eyes were burning 
with a fierce light and her breath came short and 
quick with excitement. She said to herself : ‘ ‘ The 

puzzle is solved now; many a time it has been a 
mystery to me, the impossible things the child has 
done in the dark, but it is all clear to me now.’’ 

She set him in his small chair, and said, 

“ Wait a little till I come, dear; then we will talk 
about the matter.” 

She went up to her room and took from her 
dressing-table several small articles and put them 
out of sight: a nail- file on the floor under the bed; 
a pair of nail-scissors under the bureau; a small 
ivory paper-knife under the wardrobe. Then she 
returned, and said : 

There I I have left some things which I ought 
to have brought down.” She named them, and 
said, “ Run up and bring them, dear.” 

The child hurried away on his errand and was soon 
back again with the things. 

“ Did you have any difficulty, dear? ” 

“ No, mamma; I only went where you went.” 

During his absence she had stepped to the book- 
case, taken several books from the bottom shelf. 


299 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

opened each, passed her hand over a page, noting its 
number in her memory, then restored them to their 
places. Now she said: 

“ I have been doing something while you have 
been gone, Archy. Do you think you can find out 
what it was ? ’ ' 

The boy went to the bookcase and got out the 
books that had been touched, and opened them at 
the pages which had been stroked. 

The mother took him in her lap, and said : 

“ I will answer your question now, dear. I have 
found out that in one way you are quite different 
from other people. You can see in the dark, you 
can smell what other people cannot, you have the 
talents of a bloodhound. They are good and valu- 
able things to have, but you must keep the matter a 
secret. If people found it out, they would speak of 
you as an odd child, a strange child, and children 
would be disagreeable to you, and give you nick- 
names. In this world one must be like everybody 
else if he doesn’t want to provoke scorn or envy or 
jealousy. It is a great and fine distinction which 
has been born to you, and I am glad; but you will 
keep it a secret, for mamma’s sake, won’t you? ” 

The child promised, without understanding. 

All the rest of the day the mother’s brain was 
busy with excited thinkings; with plans, projects, 
schemes, each and all of them uncanny, grim, and 
dark. Yet they lit up her face ; lit it with a fell 
light of their own; lit it with vague fires of hell. 


300 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


She was in a fever of unrest; she could not sit, 
stand, read, sew; there was no relief for her but in 
movement. She tested her boy’s gift in twenty 
ways, and kept saying to herself all the time, with 
her mind in the past: “He broke my father’s 
heart, and night and day all these years I have tried, 
and all in vain, to think out a way to break his. I 
have found it now — I have found it now.’’ 

When night fell, the demon of unrest still possessed 
her. She went on with her tests ; with a candle she 
traversed the house from garret to cellar, hiding pins, 
needles, thimbles, spools, under pillows, under 
carpets, in cracks in the walls, under the coal in the 
bin; then sent the little fellow in the dark to find 
them ; which he did, and was happy and proud when 
she praised him and smothered him with caresses. 

From this time forward life took on a new com- 
plexion for her. She said, “ The future is secure — 
I can wait, and enjoy the waiting.’’ The most of 
her lost interests revived. She took up music again, 
and languages, drawing, painting, and the other long- 
discarded delights of her maidenhood. She was 
happy once more, and felt again the zest of life. 
As the years drifted by she watched the develop- 
ment of her boy, and was contented with it. Not 
altogether, but nearly that. The soft side of his 
heart was larger than the other side of it. It was 
his only defect, in her eyes. But she considered 
that his love for her and worship of her made up for 
it. He was a good hater — that was well; but it 


301 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

was a question if the materials of his hatreds were of 
as tough and enduring a quality as those of his 
friendships — and that was not so well. 

The years drifted on. Archy was become a hand- 
some, shapely, athletic youth, courteous, dignified, 
companionable, pleasant in his ways, and looking 
perhaps a trifle older than he was, which was sixteen. 
One evening his mother said she had something of 
grave importance to say to him, adding that he was 
old enough to hear it now, and old enough and pos- 
sessed of character enough and stability enough to 
carry out a stern plan which she had been for years 
contriving and maturing. Then she told him her 
bitter story, in all its naked atrociousness. For a 
while the boy was paralyzed ; then he said : 

“I understand. We are Southerners; and by 
our custom and nature there is but one atonement. 
I will search him out and kill him.” 

‘‘Kill him? No! Death is release, emancipa- 
tion; death is a favor. Do I owe him favors? You 
must not hurt a hair of his head.” 

The boy was lost in thought awhile ; then he said : 

‘‘ You are all the world to me, and your desire is 
my law and my pleasure. Tell me what to do and 
I will do it.” 

The mother’s eyes beamed with satisfaction, and 
she said: 

‘‘You will go and find him. I have known his 
hiding-place for eleven years ; it cost me five years 
and more of inquiry, and much money, to locate it. 


302 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


He is a quartz-miner in Colorado, and well-to-do. 
He lives in Denver. His name is Jacob Fuller. 
There — it is the first time I have spoken it since 
that unforgettable night. Think ! That name could 
have been yours if I had not saved you that shame 
and furnished you a cleaner one. You will drive 
him from that place ; you will hunt him down and 
drive him again; and yet again, and again, and 
again, persistently, relentlessly, poisoning his life, 
filling it with mysterious terrors, loading it with 
weariness and misery, making him wish for death, 
and that he had a suicide’s courage; you will make 
of him another wandering Jew; he shall know no 
rest any more, no peace of mind, no placid sleep; 
you shall shadow him, cling to him, persecute him, 
till you break his heart, as he broke my father’s and 
mine.” 

” I will obey, mother.” 

” I believe it, my child. The preparations are all 
made; everything is ready. Here is a letter of 
credit; spend freely, there is no lack of money. 
At times you may need disguises. I have provided 
them; also some other conveniences.” She took 
from the drawer of the typewriter table several 
squares of paper. They all bore these typewritten 
words : 

$10, OCX) REWARD. 

It is believed that a certain man who is wanted in an Eastern State 
is sojourning here. In 1880, in the night, he tied his young wife to a 
tree by the public road, cut her across the face with a cowhide, and 
made his dogs tear her clothes from her, leaving her naked. He left 


303 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

her there, and fled the country. A blood-relative of hers has searched 

for him for seventeen years. Address Post-office. 

The above reward will be paid in cash to the person who will furnish 
the seeker, in a personal interview, the criminal’s address. 

When you have found him and acquainted your- 
self with his scent, you will go in the night and 
placard one of these upon the building he occupies, 
and another one upon the post-office or in some 
other prominent place. It will be the talk of the 
region. At first you must give him several days in 
which to force a sale of his belongings at something 
approaching their value. We will ruin him by and 
by, but gradually ; we must not impoverish him at 
once, for that could bring him to despair and injure 
his health, possibly kill him.*’ 

She took three or four more typewritten forms 
from the drawer — duplicates — and read one: 



To Jacob Fuller : 

You have days in which to settle your affairs. You will not 

be disturbed during that limit, which will expire at M., on the 

of You must then MOVE ON. If you are still in the 

place after the named hour, I will placard you on all the dead walls, 
detailing your crime once more, and adding the date, also the scene of 
it, with all names concerned, including your own. Have no fear of 
bodily injury — it will in no circumstances ever be inflicted upon you. 
You brought misery upon an old man, and ruined his life and broke his 
heart. What he suffered, you are to suffer. 

“You will add no signature. He must receive 
this before he learns of the reward placard — before 
he rises in the morning — lest he lose his head and 
fly the place penniless.” 

“ I shall not forget.” 


304 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


“You will need to use these forms only in the be- 
ginning — once may be enough. Afterward, when 
you are ready for him to vanish out of a place, see 
that he gets a copy of this form, which merely says : 

MOVE ON. You have days. 

“ He will obey. That is sure. “ 


CHAPTER III. 


c 


'XTRACTS from letters 


to the mother: 


Denver, April 3, 1897. 

I have now been living several days in the same hotel with Jacob 
Fuller. I have his scent; I could track him through ten divisions 
of infantry and find him. I have often been near him and heard him 
talk. He owns a good mine, and has a fair income from it; but he is 
not rich. He learned mining in a good way — by working at it for 
wages. He is a cheerful creature, and his forty-three years sit lightly 
upon him; he could pass for a younger man — say thirty-six or thirty- 
seven. He has never married again — passes himself off for a widower. 
He stands well, is liked, is popular, and has many friends. Even I feel 
a drawing toward him — the paternal blood in me making its claim. 
How blind and unreasoning and arbitrary are some of the laws of nature 
— the most of them, in fact! My task is become hard now — you 
realize it ? you comprehend, and make allowances ? — and the fire of it 
has cooled, more than I like to confess to myself. But I will carry it 
out. Even with the pleasure paled, the duty remains, and I will 
not spare him. 

And for my help, a sharp resentment rises in me when I reflect that 
he who committed that odious crime is the only one who has not 
suffered by it. The lesson of it has manifestly reformed his character, 
and in the change he is happy. He, the guilty party, is absolved from 
all suffering; you, the innocent, are borne down with it. But be com- 
forted — he shall harvest his share. 


Silver Gulch, May 19. 

I placarded Form No. i at midnight of April 3; an hour later I 
slipped Form No. 2 under his chamber door, notifying him to leave 
Denver at or before 11.50 the night of the 14th. 


( 305 ) 


306 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


Some late bird of a reporter stole one of my placards, then hunted the 
town over and found the other one, and stole that. In this manner he 
accomplished what the profession call a “scoop” — that is, he got 
a valuable item, and saw to it that no other paper got it. And so his 
paper — the principal one in the town — had it in glaring type on the 
editorial page in the morning, followed by a Vesuvian opinion of our 
wretch a column long, which wound up by adding a thousand dollars to 
our reward on the paper's account ! The journals out here know how 
to do the noble thing — when there’s business in it. 

At breakfast I occupied my usual seat — selected because it afforded 
a view of papa Fuller’s face, and was near enough for me to hear the 
talk that went on at his table. Seventy-five or a hundred people were 
in the room, and all discussing that item, and saying they hoped the 
seeker would find that rascal and remove the pollution of his presence 
from the town — with a rail, or a bullet, or something. 

When Fuller came in he had the Notice to Leave — folded up — in one 
hand, and the newspaper in the other; and it gave me more than half 
a pang to see him. His cheerfulness was all gone, and he looked old 
and pinched and ashy. And then — only think of the things he had to 
listen to ! Mamma, he heard his own unsuspecting friends describe him 
with epithets and characterizations drawn from the very dictionaries and 
phrase-books of Satan’s own authorized editions down below. And 
more than that, he had to agree with the verdicts and applaud them. 
His applause tasted bitter in his mouth, though; he could not disguise 
that from me; and it was observable that his appetite was gone; he 
only nibbled; he couldn’t eat. Finally a man said : 

“ It is quite likely that that relative is in the room and hearing what 
this town thinks of that unspeakable scoundrel. I hope so.” 

Ah, dear, it was pitiful the way Fuller winced, and glanced around 
scared ! He couldn’t endure any more, and got up and left. 

During several days he gave out that he had bought a mine in Mexico, 
and wanted to sell out and go down there as soon as he could, and give 
the property his personal attention. He played his cards well; said he 
would take $40,000 — a quarter in cash, the rest in safe notes; but that 
as he greatly needed money on account of his new purchase, he would 
diminish his terms for cash in full. He sold out for $30,000. And 
then, what do you think he did? He asked for greenbacks^ and took 
them, saying the man in Mexico was a New-Englander, with a head 
full of crotchets, and preferred greenbacks to gold or drafts. People 


307 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


thought it queer, since a draft on New York could produce greenbacks 
quite conveniently. There was talk of this odd thing, but only for a 
day; that is as long as any topic lasts in Denver. 

I was watching, all the time. As soon as the sale was completed and 
the money paid — which was on the nth — I began to stick to Fuller’s 
track without dropping it for a moment. That night — no, I2th, for it 
was a little past midnight — I tracked him to his room, which was four 
doors from mine in the same hall; then I went back and put on my 
muddy day-laborer disguise, darkened my complexion, and sat down 
in my room in the gloom, with a gripsack handy, with a change in it, 
and my door ajar. For I suspected that the bird would take wing now.’ 
In half an hour an old woman passed by, carrying a grip : I caught the 
familiar whiff, and followed with my grip, for it was Fuller. He left 
the hotel by a side entrance, and at the comer he turned up an unfre- 
quented street and walked three blocks in a light rain and a heavy dark- 
ness, and got into a two-horse hack, which of course was waiting for 
him by appointment. I took a seat (uninvited) on the trunk platform 
behind, and we drove briskly off. We drove ten miles, and the hack 
stopped at a way-station and was discharged. Fuller got out and took 
a seat on a barrow under the awning, as far as he could get from the 
light; I went inside, and watched the ticket -office. Fuller bought no 
ticket; I bought none. Presently the train came along, and he boarded 
a car; I entered the same car at the other end, and came down the aisle 
and took the seat behind him. When he paid the conductor and named 
his objective point, I dropped back several seats, while the conductor 
was changing a bill, and when he came to me I paid to the same place 
— about a hundred miles westward. 

From that time for a week on end he led me a dance. He traveled 
here and there and yonder — always on a general westward trend — 
but he was not a woman after the first day. He was a laborer, like my- 
self, and wore bushy false whiskers. His outfit was perfect, and he 
could do the character without thinking about it, for he had served the 
trade for wages. His nearest friend could not have recognized him. 
At last he located himself here, the obscurest little mountain camp in 
Montana; he has a shanty, arid goes out prospecting daily; is gone all 
day, and avoids society. I am living at a miner’s boarding-house, and 
it is an awful place ; the bunks, the food, the dirt — everything. 

We have been here four weeks, and in that time I have seen him but 
once; but every night I go over his track and post myself. As soon as 


308 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


he engaged a shanty here I went to a town fifty miles away and tele- 
graphed that Denver hotel to keep my baggage till I should send for it. 
I need nothing here but a change of army shirts, and I brought that 
with me. 

Silver Gulch, June 12. 

The Denver episode has never found its way here, I think. I know 
the most of the men in camp, and they have never referred to it, at least 
in my hearing. Fuller doubtless feels quite safe in these conditions. 
He has located a claim, two miles away, in an out-of-the-way place in 
the mountains; it promises very well, and he is working it diligently. 
Ah, but the change in him! He never smiles, and he keeps quite 
to himself, consorting with no one — he who was so fond of company 
and so cheery only two months ago. I have seen him passing along 
several times recently — drooping, forlorn, the spring gone from his 
step, a pathetic figure. He calls himself David Wilson. 

I can trust him to remain here until we disturb him. Since you 
insist, I will banish him again, but I do not see how he can be unhap- 
pier than he already is. I will go back to Denver and treat myself to a 
little season of comfort, and edible food, and endurable beds, and bodily 
decency; then I will fetch my things, and notify poor papa Wilson 
to move on. 

Denver, June 19. 

They miss him here. They all hope he is prospering in Mexico, and 
they do not say it just with their mouths, but out of their hearts. You 
know you can always tell. I am loitering here overlong, I confess it. 
But if you were in my place you would have charity for me. Yes, 
I know what you will say, and you are right : if I were in your place, 
and carried your scalding memories in my heart — 

I will take the night train back to-morrow. 

Denver, June 20. 

God forgive us, mother, we are hunting the wrong man ! I have 
not slept any all night. I am now waiting, at dawn, for the morning 
train — and how the minutes drag, how they drag ! 

This Jacob Fuller is a cousin of the guilty one. How stupid we 
have been not to reflect that the guilty one would never again wear his 
own name after that fiendish deed ! The Denver Fuller is four years 
younger than the other one; he came here a young widower in ’79, 
aged twenty-one — a year before you were married; and the documents 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


309 


to prove it are innumerable. Last night I talked with familiar friends 
of his who have known him from the day of his arrival. I said nothing, 
but a few days from now I will land him in this town again, with the 
loss upon his mine made good; and there will be a banquet, and a 
torch-light procession, and there will not be any expense on anybody 
but me. Do you call this “gush” ? I am only a boy, as you well 
know; it is my privilege. By and by I shall not be a boy any more. 

Silver Gulch, July 3. 

Mother, he is gone ! Gone, and left no trace. The scent was cold 
when I came. To-day I am out of bed for the first time since. I wish 
I were not a boy; then I could stand shocks better. They all think he 
went west. I start to-night, in a wagon — two or three hours of that, 
then I get a train. I don’t know where I’m going, but I must go; to 
try to keep still would be torture. 

Of course he has effaced himself with a new name and a disguise. 
This means that / may have to search the whole globe to find him. In- 
deed it is what I expect. Do you see, mother? It is /that am the 
Wandering Jew. The irony of it ! We arranged that for another. 

Think of the difficulties ! And there would be none if I only could 
advertise for him. But if there is any way to do it that would not 
frighten him, I have not been able to think it out, and I have tried till 
my brains are addled. “ If the gentleman who lately bought a mine in 
Mexico and sold one in Denver will send his address to ” (to whom, 
mother !), “ it will be explained to him that it was all a mistake; his 
forgiveness will be asked, and full reparation made for a loss which he 
sustained in a certain matter.” Do you see? He would think it a 
trap. Well, any one would. If I should say, “ It is now known that 
he was not the man wanted, but another man — a man who once bore 
the same name, but discarded it for good reasons” — would that 
answer? But the Denver people would wake up then and say “ Oho ! ” 
and they would remember about the suspicious greenbacks, and say, 
“ Why did he run away if he wasn’t the right man? — it is too thin.” 
If I failed to find him he would be ruined there — there where there is 
no taint upon him now. You have a better head than mine. Help me. 

I have one clew, and only one. I know his handwriting. If he puts 
his new false name upon a hotel register and does not disguise it too 
much, it will be valuable to me if I ever run across it. 


20 


310 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


San Francisco, June 28, 1898. 

You already know how well I have searched the States from Colorado 
to the Pacific, and how nearly I came to getting him once. Well, I 
have had another close miss. It was here, yesterday. I struck his 
trail, hot, on the street, and followed it on a run to a cheap hotel. That 
was a costly mistake; a dog would have gone the other way. But 
I am only part dog, and can get very humanly stupid when excited. 
He had been stopping in that house ten days; I almost know, now, 
that he stops long nowhere, the past six or eight months, but is rest- 
less and has to keep moving. I understand that feeling I and I know 
what it is to feel it. He still uses the name he had registered when 
I came so near catching him nine months ago — “James Walker”; 
doubtless the same he adopted when he fled from Silver Gulch. An 
unpretending man, and has small taste for fancy names. I recognized 
the hand easily, through its slight disguise. A square man, and not 
good at shams and pretenses. 

They said he was just gone, on a journey; left no address; didn’t 
say where he was going; looked frightened when asked to leave his 
address; had no baggage but a cheap valise; carried it off on foot — a 
“stingy old person, and not much loss [to the house.” “ OldP^ I 
suppose he is, now. I hardly heard; I was there but a moment. I 
rushed along his trail, and it led me to a wharf. Mother, the smoke of 
the steamer he had taken was just fading out on the horizon ! I should 
have saved half an hour if I had gone in the right direction at first. I 
could have taken a fast tug, and should have stood a chance of catching 
that vessel. She is bound for Melbourne. 

Hope Canyon, California, October 3, 1900. 

You have a right to complain. “A letter a year” is a paucity; I 
freely acknowledge it; but how can one write when there is nothing to 
write about but failures? No one can keep it up; it breaks the heart. 

I told you — it seems ages ago, now — how I missed him at Mel- 
bourne, and then chased him all over Australasia for months on end. 

Well, then, after that I followed him to India; almost saw him in 
Bombay; traced him all around — to Baroda, Rawal-Pindi, Lucknow, 
Lahore, Cawnpore, Allahabad, Calcutta, Madras — oh, everywhere; 
week after week, month after month, through the dust and swelter — 
always approximately on his track, sometimes close upon him, yet never 
catching him. And down to Ceylon, and then to — Never mind; 
by and by I will write it all out. 


311 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

I chased him home to California, and down to Mexico, and back 
again to California. Since then I have been hunting him about the 
State from the first of last January down to a month ago. I feel almost 
sure he is not far from Hope Canyon; I traced him to a point thirty 
miles from here, but there I lost the trail; some one gave him a lift in a 
wagon, I suppose. 

I am taking a rest, now — modified by searchings for the lost trail. I 
was tired to death, mother, and low-spirited, and sometimes coming un- 
comfortably near to losing hope; but the miners in this little camp are 
good fellows, and I am used to their sort this long time back; and their 
breezy ways freshen a person up and make him forget his troubles. I 
have been here a month. I am cabining with a young fellow named 
“Sammy” Hilly er, about twenty-five, the only son of his mother — 
like me — and loves her dearly, and writes to her every week — part of 
which is like me. He is a timid body, and in the matter of intellect — 
well, he cannot be depended upon to set a river on fire; but no matter, he 
is well liked; he is good and fine, and it is meat and bread and rest and 
luxury to sit and talk with him and have a comradeship again. I wish 
“ James Walker ” could have it. He had friends; he liked company. 
That brings up that picture of him, the time that I saw him last. The 
pathos of it ! It comes before me often and often. At that very time, 
poor thing, I was girding up my conscience to make him move on again ! 

Hillyer’s heart is better than mine, better than anybody’s in the com- 
munity, I suppose, for he is the one friend of the black sheep of the 
camp — Flint Buckner — and the only man Flint ever talks with or 
allows to talk with him. He says he knows Flint’s history, and that it 
is trouble that has made him what he is, and so one ought to be as chari- 
table toward him as one can. Now none but a pretty large heart could 
find space to accommodate a lodger like Flint Buckner, from all I hear 
about him outside. I think that this one detail will give you a better 
idea of Sammy’s character than any labored-out description I could 
furnish you of him. In one of our talks he said something about like 
this: “ Flint is a kinsman of mine, and he pours out all his troubles to 
me — empties his breast from time to time, or I reckon it would burst. 
There couldn’t be any unhappier man, Archy Stillman; his life has 
been made up of misery of mind — he isn’t near as old as he looks. 
He has lost the feel of reposefulness and peace — oh, years and years 
ago ! He doesn’t know what good luck is — never has had any; often 
says he wishes he was in the other hell, he is so tired of this one.” 


T 


CHAPTER IV. 


No real gentleman will tell the naked truth in the presence of ladies 

I T was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. 

The lilacs and laburnums, lit with the glory-fires 
of autumn, hung burning and flashing in the upper 
air, a fairy bridge provided by kind Nature for the 
wingless wild things that have their homes in the 
tree-tops and would visit together; the larch and 
the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow 
flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting 
sweep of the woodland ; the sensuous fragrance of 
innumerable deciduous flowers rose upon the swoon- 
ing atmosphere; far in the empty sky a solitary 
oesophagus* slept upon motionless wing; every- 

* [From the Springfield Republican April 12, 1902.] 

To the Editor of the Republican : — 

One of your citizens has asked me a question about the “oesopha- 
gus,” and I wish to answer him through you. This in the hope that the 
answer will get around, and save me some penmanship, for I have 
already replied to the same question more than several times, and am 
not getting as much holiday as I ought to have. 

I published a short story lately, and it was in that that I put the 
oesophagus. I will say privately that I expected it to bother some peo- 
ple — in fact, that was the intention, — but the harvest has been larger 
than I was calculating upon. The oesophagus has gathered in the 

( 313 ) 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 313 

where brooded stillness, serenity, and the peace of 
God. 

October is the time — 1900; Hope Canyon is the 
place, a silver-mining camp away down in the 

guilty and the innocent alike, whereas I was only fishing for the inno- 
cent — the innocent and confiding. I knew a few of these would write 
and ask me ; that would give me but little trouble ; but I was not ex- 
pecting that the wise and the learned would call upon me for succor. 
However, that has happened, and it is time for me to speak up and 
stop the inquiries if I can, for letter-writing is not restful to me, and I 
am not having so much fun out of this thing as I counted on. That 
you may understand the situation, I will insert a couple of sample in- 
quiries. The first is from a public instructor in the Philippines : 

Santa Cruz, Ilocos Sur, P. I. 

February 13, 1902. 

My Dear Sir ; I have just been reading the first part of your latest 
story, entitled “ A Double-barreled Detective Story,” and am very much 
delighted with it. In Part IV, page 264, Harper’s Magazine for Janu- 
ary, occurs this passage; “ far in the empty sky a solitary ‘oesophagus’ 
slept, upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, serenity, and 
the peace of God.” Now, there is one word I do not understand, 
namely, “oesophagus.” My only work of reference is the “Standard 
Dictionary,” but that fails to explain the meaning. If you can spare 
the time, I would be glad to have the meaning cleared up, as I consider 
the passage a very touching and beautiful one. It may seem foolish to 
you, but consider my lack of means away out in the northern part of 
Luzon. Yours very truly. 

Do you notice? Nothing in the paragraph disturbed him but that 
one word. It shows that that paragraph was most ably constructed for 
the deception it was intended to put upon the reader. It was my inten- 
tion that it should read plausibly, and it is now plain that it does; it was 
my intention that it should be emotional and touching, and you see, 
yourself, that it fetched this public instructor. Alas, if I had but left 
that one treacherous word out, I should have scored! scored every- 
where; and the paragraph would have slidden through every reader’s 
sensibilities like oil, and left not a suspicion behind. 

The other sample inquiry is from a professor in a New England uni- 
versity. It contains one naughty word (which I cannot bear to sup- 


314 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

Esmeralda region. It is a secluded spot, high and 
remote ; recent as to discovery ; thought by its oc- 
cupants to be rich in metal — a year or two’s pros- 
pecting will decide that matter one way or the 


press), but he is not in the theological department, so it is no harm: — 

Dear Mr. Clemens: “Far in the empty sky a solitary oesophagus 
slept upon motionless wing.” 

It is not often I get a chance to read much periodical literature, but 
I have just gone through at this belated period, with much gratification 
and edification, your “ Double-Barreled Detective Story.” 

But what in hell is an oesophagus? I keep one myself, but it never 
sleeps in the air or anywhere else. My profession is to deal with words, 
and oesophagus interested me the moment I lighted upon it. But as a 
companion of my youth used to say, “ I’ll be eternally, co-eternally 
cussed ” if I can make it out. Is it a joke, or I an ignoramus? 

Between you and me, I was almost ashamed of having fooled that 
man, but for pride’s sake I was not going to say so. I wrote and told 
him it was a joke — and that is what I am now saying to my Springfield 
inquirer. And I told him to carefully read the whole paragraph, and 
he would find not a vestige of sense in any detail of it. This also I 
commend to my Springfield inquirer. 

I have confessed. I am sorry — partially. I will not do so any 
more — for the present. Don’t ask me any more questions; let the 
oesophagus have a rest — on his same old motionless wing. 

Mark Twain. 

New York City^ April lo^ igo2. 

(Editorial.) 

^The “Double-Barreled Detective Story,” which appeared in Har- 
per’s Mag. for January and February last, is the most elaborate of bur- 
lesques on detective fiction, with striking melodramatic passages in which 
it is difficult to detect the deception, so ably is it done. But the illusion 
ought not to endure even the first incident in the February number. 
As for the paragraph which has so admirably illustrated the skill of Mr. 
Clemens’s ensemble and the carelessness of readers, here it is: — 

It was a crisp and spicy morning in early October. The lilacs and 
laburnums, lit with the glory-fires of autumn, hung burning and flashing 
in the upper air, a fairy bridge provided by kind nature for the wingless 
wild things that have their home in the tree-tops and would visit to- 


315 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

other. For inhabitants, the camp has about two 
hundred miners, one white woman and child, 
several Chinese washermen, five squaws, and a 
dozen vagrant buck Indians in rabbit-skin robes, 
battered plug hats, and tin-can necklaces. There are 
no mills as yet; no church, no newspaper. The 
camp has existed but two years ; it has made no big 
strike; the world is ignorant of its name and place. 

On both sides of the canyon the mountains rise 
wall-like, three thousand feet, and the long spiral of 
straggling huts down in its narrow bottom gets a 
kiss from the sun only once a day, when he sails 
over at noon. The village is a couple of miles long; 

gather; the larch and the pomegranate flung their purple and yellow 
flames in brilliant broad splashes along the slanting sweep of the wood- 
land; the sensuous fragrance of innumerable deciduous flowers rose 
upon the swooning atmosphere; far in the empty sky a solitary oeso- 
phagus slept upon motionless wing; everywhere brooded stillness, 
serenity, and the peace of God. 

The success of Mark Twain’s joke recalls to mind his story of the 
petrified man in the cavern, whom he described most punctiliously, first 
giving a picture of the scene, its impressive solitude, and all that; then 
going on to describe the majesty of the figure, casually mentioning 
that the thumb of his right hand rested against the side of his nose; 
then after further description observing that the fingers of the right 
hand were extended in a radiating fashion; and, recurring to the digni- 
fied attitude and position of the man, incidentally remarked that the 
thumb of the left hand was in contact with the little finger of the right 
— and so on. But it was so ingeniously written that Mark, relating the 
history years later in an article which appeared in that excellent maga- 
zine of the past, the Galaxy, declared that no one ever found out the 
joke, and, if we remember aright, that that astonishing old mockery 
was actually looked for in the region where he, as a Nevada newspaper 
editor, had located it. It is certain that Mark Twain’s jumping frog 
has a good many more “ pints ” than any other frog. 


316 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

the cabins stand well apart from each other. The 
tavern is the only “ frame ” house — the only house, 
one might say. It occupies a central position, and 
is the evening resort of the population. They drink 
there, and play seven-up and dominoes; also bil- 
liards, for there is a table, crossed all over with torn 
places repaired with court-plaster; there are some 
cues, but no leathers; some chipped balls which 
clatter when they run, and do not slow up gradually, 
but stop suddenly and sit down ; there is a part of a 
cube of chalk, with a projecting jag of flint in it; 
and the man who can score six on a single break 
can set up the drinks at the bar’s expense. 

Flint Buckner’s cabin was the last one of the vil- 
lage, going south; his silver claim was at the other 
end of the village, northward, and a little beyond 
the last hut in that direction. He was a sour 
creature, unsociable, and had no companionships. 
People who had tried to get acquainted with him 
had regretted it and dropped him. His history was 
not known. Some believed that Sammy Hillyer 
knew it; others said no. If asked, Hillyer said no, 
he was not acquainted with it. Flint had a meek 
English youth of sixteen or seventeen with him, 
whom he treated roughly, both in public and in 
private; and of course this lad was applied to for 
information, but with no success. Fetlock Jones — 
name of the youth — said that Flint picked him up 
on a prospecting tramp, and as he had neither home 
nor friends in America, he had found it wise to stay" 


317 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

and take Buckner’s hard usage for the sake of the 
salary, which was bacon and beans. Further than 
this he could offer no testimony. 

Fetlock had been in this slavery for a month now, 
and under his meek exterior he was slowly consum- 
ing to a cinder with the insults and humiliations 
which his master had put upon him. For the meek 
suffer bitterly from these hurts ; more bitterly, per- 
haps, than do the manlier sort, who can burst out 
and get relief with words or blows when the limit of 
endurance has been reached. Good-hearted people 
wanted to help Fetlock out of his trouble, and tried 
to get him to leave Buckner; but the boy showed 
fright at the thought, and said he “dasn’t.” Pat 
Riley urged him, and said : 

“You leave the damned hunks and come with 
me; don’t you be afraid. I’ll take care of him^ 

The boy thanked him with tears in his eyes, but 
shuddered and said he “dasn’t risk it’’; he said 
Flint would catch him alone, some time, in the 
night, and then — “Oh, it makes me sick, Mr. 
Riley, to think of it.” 

Others said, “Run away from him; we’ll stake 
you ; skip out for the coast some night. ’ ’ But all 
these suggestions failed; he said Flint would hunt 
him down and fetch him back, just for meanness. 

The people could not understand this. The boy’s 
miseries went steadily on, week after week. It is 
quite likely that the people would have understood 
if they had known how he was employing his spare 


318 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


time. He slept in an out-cabin near Flint’s; and 
there, nights, he nursed his bruises and his humilia- 
tions, and studied and studied over a single problem 

— how he could murder Flint Buckner and not be 
found out. It was the only joy he had in life; 
these hours were the only ones in the twenty-four 
which he looked forward to with eagerness and 
spent in happiness. 

He thought of poison. No — that would not 
serve; the inquest would reveal where it was pro- 
cured and who had procured it. He thought of a 
shot in the back in a lonely place when Flint would 
be homeward bound at midnight — his unvarying 
hour for the trip. No — somebody might be near, 
and catch him. He thought of stabbing him in his 
sleep. No — he might strike an inefficient blow, 
and Flint would seize him. He examined a hundred 
different ways — none of them would answer ; for in 
even the very obscurest and secretest of them there 
was always the fatal defect of a risky a chance, a 
possibility that he might be found out. He would 
have none of that. 

But he was patient, endlessly patient. There was 
no hurry, he said to himself. He would never leave 
Flint till he left him a corpse ; there was no hurry 

— he would find the way. It was somewhere, and 
he would endure shame and pain and misery until he 
found it. Yes, somewhere there was a way which 
would leave not a trace, not even the faintest clew to 
the murderer — there was no hurry — he would find 


319 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

that way, and then — oh, then, it would just be 
good to be alive ! Meantime he would diligently 
keep up his reputation for meekness; and also, as 
always theretofore, he would allow no one to hear 
him say a resentful or offensive thing about his 
oppressor. 

Two days before the before-mentioned October 
morning Flint had bought some things, and he and 
Fetlock had brought them home to Flint’s cabin: a 
fresh box of candles, which they put in the corner; 
a tin can of blasting-powder, which they placed upon 
the candle-box; a keg of blasting-powder, which 
they placed under Flint’s bunk; a huge coil of fuse, 
which they hung on a peg. Fetlock reasoned that 
Flint’s mining operations had outgrown the pick, 
and that blasting was about to begin now. He had 
seen blasting done, and he had a notion of the pro- 
cess, but he had never helped in it. His conjecture 
was right — blasting-time had come. In the morn- 
ing the pair carried fuse, drills, and the powder-can 
to the shaft; it was now eight feet deep, and to 
get into it and out of it a short ladder was used. 
They descended, and by command Fetlock held the 
drill — without any instructions as to the right way 
to hold it — and Flint proceeded to strike. The 
sledge came down; the drill sprang out of Fetlock’s 
hand, almost as a matter of course. 

“ You mangy son of a nigger, is that any way to 
hold a drill ? Pick it up ! Stand it up ! There — 
hold fast. D you ! /’// teach you ! ” 


320 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

At the end of an hour the drilling was finished. 

“ Now, then, charge it.” 

The boy started to pour in the powder. 

“Idiot! ” 

A heavy bat on the jaw laid the lad out. 

“ Get up! You can’t lie sniveling there. Now, 
then, stick in the fuse first. Now put in the 
powder. Hold on, hold on ! Are you going to fill 
the hole all up ? Of all the sap-headed milksops I 
— Put in some dirt ! Put in some gravel ! Tamp 
it down ! Hold on, hold on ! Oh, great Scott ! 
get out of the way ! ’ ’ He snatched the iron and 
tamped the charge himself, meantime cursing and 
blaspheming like a fiend. Then he fired the fuse, 
climbed out of the shaft, and ran fifty yards away. 
Fetlock following. They stood waiting a few min- 
utes, then a great volume of smoke and rocks burst 
high into the air with a thunderous explosion ; after 
a little there was a shower of descending stones; 
then all was serene again. 

“ I wish to God you’d been in it! ” remarked the 
master. 

They went down the shaft, cleaned it out, drilled 
another hole, and put in another charge. 

“ Look here ! How much fuse are you proposing 
to waste? Don’t you know how to time a fuse? ” 

“No, sir.” 

“ You don't ! Well, if you don’t beat anything I 
ever saw ! ’ ’ 

He climbed out of the shaft and spoke down ; 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 321 

“Well, idiot, are you going to be all day? Cut 
the fuse and light it ! ’ ’ 

The trembling creature began, 

“ If you please, sir, I — “ 

“You talk back to me f Cut it and light it ! “ 

The boy cut and lit. 

Ger-reat Scott ! a one-minute fuse ! I wish you 
were in — “ 

In his rage he snatched the ladder out of the shaft 
and ran. The boy was aghast. 

“ Oh, my God ! Help ! Help ! Oh, save me ! “ 
he implored. “Oh, what can I do! What can 
Ido!“ 

He backed against the wall as tightly as he could ; 
the sputtering fuse frightened the voice out of him ; 
his breath stood still ; he stood gazing and impotent ; 
in two seconds, three seconds, four he would be fly- 
ing toward the sky torn to fragments. Then he had 
an inipiration. He sprang at the fuse; severed the 
inch of it that was left above ground, and was saved. 

He sank down limp and half lifeless with fright, 
his strength gone ; but he muttered with a deep joy : 

‘ ‘ He has learnt me ! I knew there was a way, if 
I would wait.“ 

After a matter of five minutes Buckner stole to the 
shaft, looking worried and uneasy, and peered down 
into it. He took in the situation ; he saw what had 
happened. He lowered the ladder, and the boy 
dragged himself weakly up it. He was very white. 
His appearance added something to Buckner’s un- 


322 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


comfortable state, and he said, with a show of regret 
and sympathy which sat upon him awkwardly from 
lack of practice : 

It was an accident, you know. Don’t say any- 
thing about it to anybody; I was excited, and didn’t 
notice what I was doing. You’re not looking well; 
you’ve worked enough for to-day; go down to my 
cabin and eat what you want, and rest. It’s just an 
accident, you know, on account of my being 
excited.” 

” It scared me,” said the lad, as he started away; 
‘‘ but I learnt something, so I don’t mind it.” 

‘ ‘ Damned easy to please ! ’ ’ muttered Buckner, 
following him with his eye. ‘‘ I wonder if he’ll tell? 
Mightn’t he? . . .1 wish it ^< 3 :^ killed him.” 

The boy took no advantage of his holiday in the 
matter of resting; he employed it in work, eager 
and feverish and happy work. A thick growth of 
chaparral extended down the mountain-side clear to 
Flint’s cabin; the most of Fetlock’s labor was done 
in the dark intricacies of that stubborn growth ; the 
rest of it was done in his own shanty. At last all 
was complete, and he said : 

‘‘ If he’s got any suspicions that I’m going to tell 
on him, he won’t keep them long, to-morrow. He 
will see that I am the same milksop as I always was 
— all day and the next. And the day after to-mor- 
row night there’ll be an end of him ; nobody will 
ever guess who finished him up nor how it was done. 
He dropped me the idea his own self, and that’s odd.” 


CHAPTER V. 


T he next day came and went. 

It is now almost midnight, and in five min- 
utes the new morning will begin. The scene is in 
the tavern billiard-room. Rough men in rough 
clothing, slouch hats, breeches stuffed into boot- 
tops, some with vests, none with coats, are grouped 
about the boiler-iron stove, which has ruddy cheeks 
and is distributing a grateful warmth; the billiard 
balls are clacking ; there is no other sound — that is, 
within ; the wind is fitfully moaning without. The 
men look bored ; also expectant. A hulking, broad- 
shouldered miner, of middle age, with grizzled whis- 
kers, and an unfriendly eye set in an unsociable face, 
rises, slips a coil of fuse upon his arm, gathers up 
some other personal properties, and departs without 
word or greeting to anybody. It is Flint Buckner. As 
the door closes behind him a buzz of talk breaks out. 

“The regularest man that ever was,“ said Jake 
Parker, the blacksmith: “you can tell when it’s 
twelve just by him leaving, without looking at your 
Waterbury.’’ 

“And it’s the only virtue he’s got, as fur as I 
know,’’ said Peter Hawes, miner. 


( 323 ) 


324 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

“ He’s just a blight on this society,” said Wells- 
Fargo’s man, Ferguson. ‘‘If I was running this 
shop I’d make him say something, some time or 
other, or vamos the ranch.” This with a suggestive 
glance at the barkeeper, who did not choose to see 
it, since the man under discussion was a good cus- 
tomer, and went home pretty well set up, every 
night, with refreshments furnished from the bar. 

‘‘Say,” said Ham Sandwich, miner, ‘‘does any 
of you boys ever recollect of him asking you to take 
a drink? ” 

‘‘ Him ? Flint Buckner? Oh, Laura! ” 

This sarcastic rejoinder came in a spontaneous 
general outburst in one form of words or another 
from the crowd. After a brief silence, Pat Riley, 
miner, said: 

‘‘He’s the 15-puzzle, that cuss. And his boy’s 
another one. / can’t make them out.” 

‘‘ Nor anybody else,” said Ham Sandwich; ‘‘ and 
if they are 15 -puzzles, how are you going to rank 
up that other one? When it comes to A i right- 
down solid mysteriousness, he lays over both of 
them. Easy — don’t he?” 

“You bet!” 

Everybody said it. Every man but one. He 
was the new-comer — Peterson. He ordered the 
drinks all round, and asked who No. 3 might be. 
All answered at once, ‘‘ Archy Stillman ! ” 

‘‘ Is he a mystery? ” asked Peterson. 

‘‘Is he a mystery? Is Archy Stillman a mys- 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 325 

tery? ** said Wells-Fargo’s man, Ferguson. “ Why, 
the fourth dimension’s foolishness to him,"' 

For Ferguson was learned. 

Peterson wanted to hear all about him ; everybody 
wanted to tell him; everybody began. But Billy 
Stevens, the barkeeper, called the house to order, 
and said one at a time was best. He distributed the 
drinks, and appointed Ferguson to lead. Ferguson 
said : 

“ Well, he’s a boy. And that is just about all we 
know about him. You can pump him till you are 
tired; it ain’t any use; you won’t get anything. 
At least about his intentions, or line of business, 
or where he’s from, and such things as that. And 
as for getting at the nature and get-up of his main 
big chief mystery, why, he’ll just change the subject, 
that’s all. You can guess till you’re black in the face 
— it’s your privilege — but suppose you do, where do 
you arrive at? Nowhere, as near as I can make out. ’ ’ 

‘ ‘ What is his big chief one ? ’ ’ 

“ Sight, maybe. Hearing, maybe. Instinct, 
maybe. Magic, maybe. Take your choice — 
grown-ups, twenty-five; children and servants, half 
price. Now I’ll tell you what he can do. You can 
start here, and just disappear ; you can go and hide 
wherever you want to, I don’t care where it is, 
nor how far — and he’ll go straight and put his 
finger on you.” 

” You don’t mean it ! ” 

” I just do, though. Weather’s nothing to him — 
31 


326 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

elemental conditions is nothing to him — he don’t 
even take notice of them.” 

“Oh, come! Dark? Rain? Snow? Hey?” 

“It’s all the same to him. He don’t give a 
damn.” 

“ Oh, say — including per’aps? ” 

''Fog! he’s got an eye ’t can plunk through it 
like a bullet.” 

“ Now, boys, honor bright, what’s he giving me?” 

“It’s a fact!” they all shouted. “Go on, 
Wells-Fargo.” 

“ Well, sir, you can leave him here, chatting with 
the boys, and you can slip out and go to any cabin 
in this camp and open a book — yes, sir, a dozen of 
them — and take the page in your memory, and 
he’ll start out and go straight to that cabin and open 
every one of them books at the right page, and call 
it off, and never make a mistake.” 

“ He must be the devil ! ” 

“More than one has thought it. Now I’ll tell 
you a perfectly wonderful thing that he done. The 
other night he — ” 

There was a sudden great murmur of sounds out- 
side, the door flew open, and an excited crowd burst 
in, with the camp’s one white woman in the lead 
and crying: 

“ My child ! my child ! she’s lost and gone ! For 
the love of God help me to find Archy Stillman ; 
we’ve hunted everywhere! ” 

Said the barkeeper: 


327 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

“Sit down, sit down, Mrs. Hogan, and don’t 
worry. He asked for a bed three hours ago, tuck- 
ered out tramping the trails the way he’s always do- 
ing, and went upstairs. Ham Sandwich, run up 
and roust him out; he’s in No. 14.’’ 

The youth was soon downstairs and ready. He 
asked Mrs. Hogan for particulars. 

“Bless you, dear, there ain’t any; I wish there 
was. I put her to sleep at seven in the evening, 
and when I went in there an hour ago to go to bed 
myself, she was gone. I rushed for your cabin, 
dear, and you wasn’t there, and I’ve hunted for you 
ever since, at every cabin down the gulch, and now 
I’ve come up again, and I’m that distracted and 
scared and heart-broke; but, thanks to God, I’ve 
found you at last, dear heart, and you’ll find my 
child. Come on! come quick I ’’ 

“ Move right along; I’m with you, madam. Go 
to your cabin first.’’ 

The whole company streamed out to join the 
hunt. All the southern half of the Village was up, 
a hundred men strong, and waiting outside, a vague 
dark mass sprinkled with twinkling lanterns. The 
mass fell into columns by threes and fours to accom- 
modate itself to the narrow road, and strode briskly 
along southward in the wake of the leaders. In a 
few minutes the Hogan cabin was reached. 

“ There’s the bunk,’’ said Mrs. Hogan; “ there’s 
where she was; it’s where I laid her at seven 
o’clock; but where she is now, God only knows.’’ 


u 


328 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


“ Hand me a lantern,” said Archy. He set it 
on the hard earth floor and knelt by it, pretending 
to examine the ground closely. ‘‘Here’s her 
track,” he said, touching the ground here and there 
and yonder with his finger. ‘ ‘ Do you see ? ’ ’ 

Several of the company dropped upon their knees 
and did their best to see. One or two thought they 
discerned something like a track; the others shook 
their heads and confessed that the smooth hard 
surface had no marks upon it which their eyes were 
sharp enough to discover. One said, ‘‘ Maybe a 
child’s foot could make a mark on it, but I don’t 
see how.” 

Young Stillman stepped outside, held the light to 
the ground, turned leftward, and moved three steps, 
closely examining; then said, ‘‘I’ve got the direc- 
tion — come along ; take the lantern, somebody. ’ ’ 
He strode off swiftly southward, the files follow- 
ing, swaying and bending in and out with the deep 
curves of the gorge. Thus a mile, and the mouth 
of the gorge was reached; before them stretched 
the sage-brush plain, dim, vast, and vague. Still- 
man called a halt, saying, ‘‘ We mustn’t start wrong, 
now; we must take the direction again.” 

He took a lantern and examined the ground for a 
matter of twenty yards; then said, ‘‘ Come on; it’s all 
right,” and gave up the lantern. In and out among 
the sage-bushes he marched, a quarter of a mile, bear- 
ing gradually to the right ; then took a new direction 
and made another great semicircle; then changed 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 329 

again and moved due west nearly half a mile — and 
stopped. 

“ She gave it up, here, poor little chap. Hold the 
lantern. You can see where she sat.” 

But this was in a slick alkali flat which was sur- 
faced like steel, and no person in the party was 
quite hardy enough to claim an eyesight that could 
detect the track of a cushion on a veneer like that. 
The bereaved mother fell upon her knees and kissed 
the spot, lamenting. 

‘ ‘ But where is she, then ? ' * some one said. ‘ ‘ She 
didn’t stay here. We can see that much, anyway.” 

Stillman moved about in a circle around the place, 
with the lantern, pretending to hunt for tracks. 

“Well! ” he said presently, in an annoyed tone, 
‘‘I don’t understand it.” He examined again. 
‘‘No use. She was here — that’s certain; she 
never walked away from here — and that’s certain. 
It’s a puzzle; I can’t make it out.” 

The mother lost heart then. 

‘‘Oh, my God! oh, blessed Virgin I some flying 
beast has got her. I’ll never see her again ! ” 

‘‘ Ah, don't give up,” said Archy. ‘‘ We’ll find 
her — don’t give up.” 

‘‘ God bless you for the words, Archy Stillman ! ” 
and she seized his hand and kissed it fervently. 

Peterson, the new-comer, whispered satirically in 
Ferguson’s ear: 

‘ ‘ Wonderful performance to find this place, 
wasn’t it? Hardly worth while to come so far. 


330 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

though ; any other supposititious place would have 
answered just as well — hey? ” 

Ferguson was not pleased with the innuendo. He 
said, with some warmth: 

“ Do you mean to insinuate that the child hasn’t 
been here ? I tell you the child has been here ! 
Now if you want to get yourself into as tidy a 
little fuss as — ” 

“ All right ! ” sang out Stillman. “ Come, every- 
body, and look at this ! It was right under our 
noses all the time, and we didn’t see it.” 

There was a general plunge for the ground at the 
place where the child was alleged to have rested, 
and many eyes tried hard and hopefully to see the 
thing that Archy’s finger was resting upon. There 
was a pause, then a several-barreled sigh of disap- 
pointment. Pat Riley and Ham Sandwich said, in 
the one breath : 

” What is it, Archy? There’s nothing here.” 

” Nothing? Do you call that nothing? ” and he 
swiftly traced upon the ground a form with his 
finger. ‘‘There — don’t you recognize it now? 
It’s Injun Billy’s track. He’s got the child.” 

‘‘ God be praised ! ” from the mother. 

‘‘ Take away the lantern. I’ve got the direction. 
Follow!” 

He started on a run, racing in and out among the 
sage-bushes a matter of three hundred yards, and 
disappeared over a sand-wave ; the others struggled 
after him, caught him up, and found him waiting. 


331 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

Ten steps away was a little wickieup, a dim and 
formless shelter of rags and old horse-blankets, a 
dull light showing through its chinks. 

“You lead, Mrs. Hogan,” said the lad. “It’s 
your privilege to be first.” 

All followed the sprint she made for the wickieup, 
and saw, with her, the picture its interior afforded. 
Injun Billy was sitting on the ground ; the child was 
asleep beside him. The mother hugged it with a 
wild embrace, which included Archy Stillman, the 
grateful tears running down her face, and in a 
choked and broken voice she poured out a golden 
stream of that wealth of worshiping endearments 
which has its home in full richness nowhere but in 
the Irish heart. 

“ I find her bymeby it is ten o’clock,” Billy ex- 
plained. “ She ’sleep out yonder, ve’y tired — face 
wet, been cryin’, ’spose; fetch her home, feed her, 
she heap much hungry — go ’sleep ’gin.” 

In her limitless gratitude the happy mother waived 
rank and hugged him too, calling him “ the angel of 
God in disguise.” And he probably was in disguise 
if he was that kind of an official. He was dressed 
for the character. 

At half-past one in the morning the procession 
burst into the village singing, “ When Johnny Comes 
Marching Home,” waving its lanterns, and swal- 
lowing the drinks that were brought out all along its 
course. It concentrated at the tavern, and made a 
night of what was left of the morning. 


CHAPTER VI. 


IE next afternoon the village was electrified with 



■ an immense sensation. A grave and dignified 
foreigner of distinguished bearing and appearance had 
arrived at the tavern, and entered this formidable 
name upon the register : 


SHERLOCK HOLMES, 


The news buzzed from cabin to cabin, from claim 
to claim; tools were dropped, and the town swarmed 
toward the centre of interest. A man passing out 
at the northern end of the village shouted it to Pat 
Riley, whose claim was the next one to Flint Buck- 
ner’s. At that time Fetlock Jones seemed to turn 
sick. He muttered to himself : 

“ Uncle Sherlock ! The mean luck of it! — that 
he should come just when . . . He dropped 
into a reverie, and presently said to himself: “ But 
what’s the use of being afraid of him ? Anybody 
that knows him the way I do knows he can’t 
detect a crime except where he plans it all out 
beforehand and arranges the clews and hires 
some fellow to commit it according to instructions. 
... Now there ain’t going to be any clews this 


( 332 ) 


333 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

time — so, what show has he got? None at all. 
No, sir; everything’s ready. If I was to risk put- 
ting it off — . . No, I won’t run any risk like that. 
Flint Buckner goes out of this world to-night, for 
sure.” Then another trouble presented itself. 
” Uncle Sherlock ’ll be wanting to talk home matters 
with me this evening, and how am I going to get rid 
of him? for We got to be at my cabin a minute or 
two about eight o’clock.” This was an awkward 
matter, and cost him much thought. But he found 
a way to beat the difficulty. ‘‘ We’ll go for a walk, 
and I’ll leave him in the road a minute, so that he 
won’t see what it is I do: the best way to throw a 
detective off the track, anyway, is to have him along 
when you are preparing the thing. Yes, that’s the 
safest — I’ll take him with me.” 

Meantime the road in front of the tavern was 
blocked with villagers waiting and hoping for a 
glimpse of the great man. But he kept his room, 
and did not appear. None but Ferguson, Jake 
Parker the blacksmith, and Ham Sandwich had any 
luck. These enthusiastic admirers of the great 
scientific detective hired the tavern’s detained-bag- 
gage lockup, which looked into the detective’s room 
across a little alleyway ten or twelve feet wide, am- 
bushed themselves in it, and cut some peep-holes in 
the window-blind. Mr. Holmes’s blinds were down; 
but by and by he raised them. It gave the spies a 
hair-lifting but pleasurable thrill to find themselves 
face to face with the Extraordinary Man who had 


334 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


filled the world with the fame of his more than 
human ingenuities. There he sat — not a myth, not 
a shadow, but real, alive, compact of substance, and 
almost within touching distance with the hand. 

“ Look at that head ! ” said Ferguson, in an awed 
voice. “ By gracious ! that' s a head ! ” 

“You bet!” said the blacksmith, with deep 
reverence. “Look at his nose I look at his eyes I 
Intellect? Just a battery of it ! ” 

“And that paleness,” said Ham Sandwich. 
“ Comes from thought — that’s what it comes from. 
Hell I duffers like us don’t know what real thought 
is." 

“No more we don’t,” said Ferguson. “What 
we take for thinking is just blubber-and-slush.” 

“ Right you are, Wells-Fargo. And look at that 
frown — that’s deep thinking — away down, down, 
forty fathom into the bowels of things. He’s on 
the track of something.” 

“Well, he is, and don’t you forget it. Say — 
look at that awful gravity — look at that pallid sol- 
emnness — there ain’t any corpse can lay over it.” 

“No, sir, not for dollars! And it’s his’n by 
hereditary rights, too; he’s been dead four times 
a’ ready, and there’s history for it. Three times 
natural, once by accident. I’ve heard say he smells 
damp and cold, like a grave. And he — ” 

“’Sh! Watch him! There — he’s got his 
thumb on the bump on the near corner of his fore- 
head, and his forefinger on the off one. His think- 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 335 

works is just ^rgrinding now, you bet your other 
shirt.'* 

“That’s so. And now he’s gazing up toward 
heaven and stroking his mustache slow, and — ’ ’ 

“ Now he has rose up standing, and is putting his 
clews together on his left fingers with his right 
finger. See? he touches the forefinger — now mid- 
dle finger — now ring-finger — ” 

“Stuck!” 

“ Look at him scowl! He can’t seem to make 
out that clew. So he — ” 

See him smile ! — like a tiger — and tally off the 
other fingers like nothing! He’s got it, boys; he’s 
got it sure ! ’ ’ 

“Well, I should say! I’d hate to be in that 
man’s place that he’s after.” 

Mr. Holmes drew a table to the window, sat down 
with his back to the spies, and proceeded to write. 
The spies withdrew their eyes from the peep-holes, 
lit their pipes, and settled themselves for a comfort- 
able smoke and talk. Ferguson said, with conviction : 

“ Boys, it’s no use calking, he’s a wonder ! He’s 
got the signs of it all over him.” 

“You hain’t ever said a truer word than that, 
Wells-Fargo,” said Jake Parker. “Say, wouldn’t 
it ’a’ been nuts if he’d a-been here last night? ” 

” Oh, by George, but wouldn’t it! ” said Fergu- 
son. “ Then we’d have seen scientific work. Intel- 
lect — just pure intellect — away up on the upper 
levels, dontchuknow. Archy is all right, and it don’t 


336 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


become anybody to belittle hiniy I can tell you. 
But his gift is only just eyesight, sharp as an 
owl’s, as near as I can make it out just a grand 
natural animal talent, no more, no less, and prime 
as far as it goes, but no intellect in it, and for awful- 
ness and marvelousness no more to be compared to 
what this man does than — than — Why, let me 
tell you what he' d have done. He’d have stepped 
over to Hogan’s and glanced — just glancedy that’s 
all — at the premises, and that’s enough. See 
everything? Yes, sir, to the last little ^^tail; and 
he’d know more about that place than the Hogans 
would know in seven years. Next, he would sit 
down on the bunk, just as ca’m, and say to Mrs. 
Hogan — Sayy Ham, consider that you are Mrs. 
Hogan. I’ll ask the questions; you answer them.” 
” All right; go on.” 

” ‘ Madam, if you please — attention — do not let 
your mind wander. Now, then — sex of the child ? ’ 

” ‘ Female, your Honor.’ 

‘ ‘ ‘ Um — female. Very good, very good. Age ? ’ 
” ‘ Turned six, your Honor.’ 

‘‘‘Um — young, weak — two miles. Weariness 
will overtake it then. It will sink down and sleep. 
We shall find it two miles away, or less. Teeth? ’ 
‘‘ ‘ Five, your Honor, and one a-coming.’ 

‘‘‘Very good, very good, very good, indeed. 
‘ You see, boys, he knows a clew when he sees it, 
when it wouldn’t mean a dern thing to anybody 
else. ‘ Stockings, madam? Shoes?’ 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 337 

Yes, your Honor — both/ 

“ ‘Yarn, perhaps? Morocco?' 

Yarn, your Honor. And kip.’ 

“ ‘ Um — kip . This complicates the matter. How- 
ever, let it go — we shall manage. Religion? ’ 

Catholic, your Honor.’ 

“‘Very good. Snip me a bit from the bed 
blanket, please. Ah, thanks. Part wool — foreign 
make. Very well. A snip from some garment of 
the child’s, please. Thanks. Cotton. Shows 
wear. An excellent clew, excellent. Pass me a 
pellet of the floor dirt, if you’ll be so kind. Thanks, 
many thanks. Ah, admirable, admirable ! Now 
we know where we are, I think.’ You see, boys, 
he’s got all the clews he wants now; he don’t need 
anything more. Now, then, what does this Ex- 
traordinary Man do? He lays those snips and that 
dirt out on the table and leans over them on his 
elbows, and puts them together side by side and 
studies them — mumbles to himself, ‘Female’; 
changes them around — mumbles, ‘ Six years old ’ ; 
changes them this way and that — again mumbles : 
‘ Five teeth — one a-coming — Catholic — yarn — 
cotton — kip — damn that kip . ’ Then he straightens 
up and gazes toward heaven, and plows his hands 
through his hair — plows and plows, muttering, 
‘ Damn that kip ! ’ Then he stands up and frowns, 
and begins to tally off his clews on his fingers — and 
gets stuck at the ring-finger. But only just a min- 
ute — then his face glares all up in a smile like a 


338 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


house afire, and he straightens up stately and 
majestic, and says to the crowd, ‘ Take a lantern, a 
couple of you, and go down to Injun Billy’s and 
fetch the child — the rest of you go ’long home to 
bed; good-night, madam; good-night, gents.’ And 
he bows like the Matterhorn, and pulls out for the 
tavern. That’s his style, and the Only — scientific, 
intellectual — all over in fifteen minutes — no pok- 
ing around all over the sage-brush range an hour 
and a half in a mass-meeting crowd for hiniy boys — 
you hear me ! ’ ’ 

“ By Jackson, it’s grand ! ” said Ham Sandwich. 
“ Wells-Fargo, you’ve got him down to a dot. 
He ain’t painted up any exacter to the life in the 
books. By George, I can just see him — can’t you, 
boys ? ’ ’ 

“You bet you! It’s just a photograft, that’s 
what it is.’’ 

Ferguson was profoundly pleased with his success, 
and grateful. He sat silently enjoying his happiness 
a little while, then he murmured, with a deep awe in 
his voice, 

“ I wonder if God made him? ’’ 

There was no response for a moment ; then Ham 
Sandwich said, reverently, 

“ Not all at one time, I reckon.’’ 


CHAPTER VII. 



T eight o’clock that evening two persons were 


groping their way past Flint Buckner’s cabin 
in the frosty gloom. They were Sherlock Holmes 
and his nephew. 

“ Stop here in the road a moment, uncle,” said 
Fetlock, ” while I run to my cabin; I won’t be gone 
a minute.” 

He asked for something — the uncle furnished it 
— then he disappeared in the darkness, but soon re- 
turned, and the talking- walk was resumed. By nine 
o’clock they had wandered back to the tavern. 
They worked their way through the billiard-room, 
where a crowd had gathered in the hope of getting 
a glimpse of the Extraordinary Man. A royal cheer 
was raised. Mr. Holmes acknowledged the compli- 
ment with a series of courtly bows, and as he was 
passing out his nephew said to the assemblage, 

” Uncle Sherlock’s got some work to do, gentle- 
men, that ’ll keep him till twelve or one; but he’ll be 
down again then, or earlier if he can, and hopes 
some of you’ll be left to take a drink with him.” 

“By George, he’s just a duke, boys! Three 
cheers for Sherlock Holmes, the greatest man that 


( 339 ) 


340 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


ever lived!” shouted Ferguson. “Hip, hip, 
hip — ” 

“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! Tiger!” 

The uproar shook the building, so hearty was the 
feeling the boys put into their welcome. Upstairs 
the uncle reproached the nephew gently, saying, 

‘ ‘ What did you get me into that engagement for ? ’ * 

‘‘ I reckon you don’t want to be unpopular, do 
you, uncle? Well, then, don’t you put on any ex- 
clusiveness in a mining-camp, that’s all. The boys 
admire you ; but if you was to leave without taking 
a drink with them, they’d set you down for a snob. 
And besides, you said you had home talk enough 
in stock to keep us up and at it half the night.” 

The boy was right, and wise — the uncle acknowl- 
edged it. The boy was wise in another detail which 
he did not mention, — except to himself: “Uncle 
and the others will come handy — in the way of nail- 
ing an alibi where it can’t be budged.” 

He and his uncle talked diligently about three 
hours. Then, about midnight. Fetlock stepped 
downstairs and took a position in the dark a dozen 
steps from the tavern, and waited. Five minutes 
later Flint Buckner came rocking out of the billiard- 
room and almost brushed him as he passed. 

“I’ve got him!” muttered the boy. He con- 
tinued to himself, looking after the shadowy form : 
“ Good-by — good-by for good, Flint Buckner; you 
called my mother a — well, never mind what: it’s all 
right, now; you’re taking your last walk, friend.” 


341 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

He went musing back into the tavern. “From 
now till one is an hour. We’ll spend it with the 
boys: it’s good for the alibi'' 

He brought Sherlock Holmes to the billiard- 
room, which was jammed with eager and admiring 
miners ; the guest called the drinks, and the fun be- 
gan. Everybody was happy; everybody was com- 
plimentary; the ice was soon broken, songs, anec- 
dotes, and more drinks followed, and the pregnant 
minutes flew. At six minutes to one, when the 
jollity was at its highest — 

Boom ! 

There was silence instantly. The deep sound 
came rolling and rumbling from peak to peak up 
the gorge, then died down, and ceased. The spell 
broke, then, and the men made a rush for the door, 
saying, 

“ Something’s blown up ! ” 

Outside, a voice in the darkness said, 

“It’s away down the gorge; I saw the flash.’’ 

The crowd poured down the canyon — Holmes, 
Fetlock, Archy Stillman, everybody. They made 
the mile in a few minutes. By the light of a lantern 
they found the smooth and solid dirt floor of Flint 
Buckner’s cabin; of the cabin itself not a vestige 
remained, not a rag nor a splinter. Nor any sign of 
Flint. Search parties sought here and there and 
yonder, and presently a cry went up. 

“Here he is! ’’ 

It was true. Fifty yards down the gulch they had 
32 


342 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


found him — that is, they had found a crushed and 
lifeless mass which represented him. Fetlock Jones 
hurried thither with the others and looked. 

The inquest was a fifteen-minute affair. Ham 
Sandwich, foreman of the jury, handed up the 
verdict, which was phrased with a certain unstudied 
literary grace, and closed with this finding, to wit: 
that ‘ ‘ deceased came to his death by his own act or 
some other person or persons unknown to this jury 
not leaving any family or similar effects behind but 
his cabin which was blown away and God have 
mercy on his soul amen.^* 

Then the impatient jury rejoined the main crowd, 
for the storm-centre of interest was there — Sher- 
lock Holmes. The miners stood silent and reverent 
in a half-circle, enclosing a large vacant space which 
included the front exposure of the site of the late 
premises. In this considerable space the Extraor- 
dinary Man was moving about, attended by his 
nephew with a lantern. With a tape he took meas- 
urements of the cabin site ; of the distance from the 
wall of chaparral to the road ; of the height of the 
chaparral bushes ; also various other measurements 
He gathered a rag here, a splinter there, and a pinch 
of earth yonder, inspected them profoundly, and 
preserved them. He took the “lay" of the place 
with a pocket compass, allowing two seconds for 
magnetic variation. He took the time (Pacific) by 
his watch, correcting it for local time. He paced off 
the distance from the cabin site to the corpse, and 


343 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

corrected that for tidal differentiation. He took the 
altitude with a pocket-aneroid, and the temperature 
with a pocket- thermometer. Finally he said, with a 
stately bow : 

“ It is finished. Shall we return, gentlemen? ** 

He took up the line of march for the tavern, and 
the crowd fell into his wake, earnestly discussing and 
admiring the Extraordinary Man, and interlarding 
guesses as to the origin of the tragedy and who the 
author of it might be. 

“ My, but it’s grand luck having him here — hey, 
boys?” said Ferguson. 

” It’s the biggest thing of the century,” said Ham 
Sandwich. ‘‘ It ’ll go all over the world; you mark 
my words.” 

” You bet!” said Jake Parker the blacksmith. 
‘‘It’ll boom this camp. Ain’t it so, Wells- 
Fargo?” 

‘‘ Well, as you want my opinion — if it’s any sign 
of how I think about it, I can tell you this : yester- 
day I was holding the Straight Flush claim at two 
dollars a foot; I’d like to see the man that can get 
it at sixteen to-day.” 

‘‘ Right you are, Wells-Fargo ! It’s the grandest 
luck a new camp ever struck. Say, did you see him 
collar them little rags and dirt and things ? What an 
eye ! He just can’t overlook a clew — ’tain’t/«him.” 

‘‘ That’s so. And they wouldn’t mean a thing to 
anybody else ; but to him, why, they’re just a book 
— large print at that. 


344 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


“ Sure’s you’re born ! Them odds and ends have 
got their little old secret, and they think there ain’t 
anybody can pull it ; but, land ! when he sets his 
grip there they’ve got to squeal, and don’t you for- 
get it.” 

” Boys, I ain’t sorry, now, that he wasn’t here to 
roust out the child ; this is a bigger thing, by a long 
sight. Yes, sir, and more tangled up and scientific 
and intellectual.” 

” I reckon we’re all of us glad it’s turned out this 
way. Glad? ’George! it ain’t any name for it. 
Dontchuknow, Archy could ’ve learnt something if 
he’d had the nous to stand by and take notice of 
how that man works the system. But no ; he went 
poking up into the chaparral and just missed the 
whole thing.” 

“It’s true as gospel; I seen it myself. Well, 
Archy’s young. He’ll know better one of these 
days.” 

” Say, boys, who do you reckon done it? ” 

That was a difficult question, and brought out a 
world of unsatisfying conjecture. Various men were 
mentioned as possibilities, but one by one they were 
discarded as not being eligible. No one but young 
Hillyer had been intimate with Flint Buckner; no 
one had really had a quarrel with him; he had 
affronted every man who had tried to make up to 
him, although not quite offensively enough to require 
bloodshed. There was one name that was upon 
every tongue from the start, but it was the last to get 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 345 

utterance — Fetlock Jones’s. It was Pat Riley that 
mentioned it. 

“ Oh, well,” the boys said, ” of course we’ve all 
thought of him, because he had a million rights to 
kill Flint Buckner, and it was just his plain duty to 
do it. But all the same there’s two things we can’t 
get around : for one thing, he hasn’t got the sand ; 
and for another, he wasn’t anywhere near the place 
when it happened.” 

‘ ‘ I know it, ’ ’ said Pat. ‘ ‘ He was there in the 
billiard-room with us when it happened.” 

‘‘ Yes, and was there all the time for an hour before 
it happened.” 

” It’s so. And lucky for him, too. He’d have 
been suspected in a minute if it hadn’t been for 
that.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 


HE tavern dining-room had been cleared of all its 



I furniture save one six-foot pine table and a 
chair. This table was against one end of the room ; 
the chair was on it; Sherlock Holmes, stately, im- 
posing, impressive, sat in the chair. The public 
stood. The room was full. The tobacco smoke 
was dense, the stillness profound. 

The Extraordinary Man raised his hand to com- 
mand additional silence; held it in the air a few 
moments ; then, in brief, crisp terms he put forward 
question after question, and noted the answers with 
“ Um-ums,” nods of the head, and so on. By this 
process he learned all about Flint Buckner, his char- 
acter, conduct, and habits, that the people were able 
to tell him. It thus transpired that the Extraordi- 
nary Man’s nephew was the only person in the camp 
who had a killing-grudge against Flint Buckner. 
Mr. Holmes smiled compassionately upon the wit- 
ness, and asked, languidly — 

‘ ‘ Do any of you gentlemen chance to know where 
the lad Fetlock Jones was at the time of the ex- 
plosion? ” 

A thunderous response followed — 


( 846 > 


347 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

‘ ‘ In the billiard-room of this house ! ’ ’ 

“ Ah. And had he just come in? 

‘ ‘ Been there all of an hour ! ’ ’ 

“ Ah. It is about — about — well, about how far 
might it be to the scene of the explosion ? ’ ’ 

“All of a mile!” 

“ Ah. It isn’t much of an alibi, ’tis true, but — ” 
A storm-burst of laughter, mingled with shouts 
of “By jiminy, but he’s chain-lightning!” and 
“ Ain’t you sorry you spoke, Sandy? ” shut off the 
rest of the sentence, and the crushed witness drooped 
his blushing face in pathetic shame. The inquisitor 
resumed : 

“The lad Jones’s somewhat distant connection 
with the case” (^laughter) “having been disposed 
of, let us now call the ^^^-witnesses of the tragedy, 
and listen to what they have to say.” 

He got out his fragmentary clews and arranged 
them on a sheet of cardboard on his knee. The 
house held its breath and watched. 

‘ ‘ We have the longitude and the latitude, cor- 
rected for magnetic variation, and this gives us the 
exact location of the tragedy. We have the altitude, 
the temperature, and the degree of humidity pre- 
vailing — inestimably valuable, since they enable us 
to estimate with precision the degree of influence 
which they would exercise upon the mood and dis- 
position of the assassin at that time of the night.” 

of admiration ; muttered remark, By 
George, but he's deep !") He fingered his clews. 


348 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

“ And now let us ask these mute witnesses to speak 
to us. 

“ Here we have an empty linen shotbag. What is 
its message? This: that robbery was the motive, 
not revenge. What is its further message? This; 
that the assassin was of inferior intelligence — shall 
we say light- witted, or perhaps approaching that? 
How do we know this ? Because a person of sound 
intelligence would not have proposed to rob the man 
Buckner, who never had much money with him. 
But the assassin might have been a stranger? Let 
the bag speak again. I take from it this article. It 
is a bit of silver-bearing quartz. It is peculiar. Ex- 
amine it, please — you — and you — and you . Now 
pass it back, please. There is but one lode on this 
coast which produces just that character and color of 
quartz ; and that is a lode which crops out for nearly 
two miles on a stretch, and in my opinion is des- 
tined, at no distant day, to confer upon its locality a 
globe-girdling celebrity, and upon its two hundred 
owners riches beyond the dreams of avarice. Name 
that lode, please.” 

‘ ‘ The Consolidated Christian Science and Mary 
Ann! ” was the prompt response. 

A wild crash of hurrahs followed, and every man 
reached for his neighbor’s hand and wrung it, with 
tears in his eyes; and Wells-Fargo Ferguson 
shouted, ” The Straight Flush is on the lode, and up 
she goes to a hundred and fifty a foot — you hear 
me!'' 


349 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

When quiet fell, Mr. Holmes resumed : 

“We perceive, then, that three facts are estab- 
lished, to wit: the assassin was approximately light- 
witted ; he was not a stranger ; his motive was rob- 
bery, not revenge. Let us proceed. I hold in my 
hand a small fragment of fuse, with the recent smell 
of fire upon it. What is its testimony? Taken 
with the corroborative evidence of the quartz, it re- 
veals to us that the assassin was a miner. What 
does it tell us further? This, gentlemen: that the 
assassination was consummated by means of an ex- 
plosive. What else does it say? This : that the ex- 
plosive was located against the side of the cabin 
nearest the road — the front side — for within six 
feet of that spot I found it. 

‘ ‘ I hold in my fingers a burnt Swedish match — 
the kind one rubs on a safety-box. I found it in the 
road, 622 feet from the abolished cabin. What does 
it say? This: that the train was fired from that 
point. What further does it tell us? This: that the 
assassin was left-handed. How do I know this? I 
should not be able to explain to you, gentlemen, 
how I know it, the signs being so subtle that only 
long experience and deep study can enable one to 
detect them. But the signs are here, and they are 
reinforced by a fact which you must have often 
noticed in the great detective narratives — that all 
assassins are left-handed.” 

“ By Jackson, that's so!” said Ham Sandwich, 
bringing his great hand down with a resounding slap 


350 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

upon his thigh ; ‘ ‘ blamed if I ever thought of it 
before.” 

“Nor I!” “Nor I!” cried several. “Oh, 
there can’t anything escape him — look at his eye ! ” 

“ Gentlemen, distant as the murderer was from his 
doomed victim, he did not wholly escape injury. 
This fragment of wood which I now exhibit to you 
struck him. It drew blood. Wherever he is, he 
bears the telltale mark. I picked it up where he 
stood when he fired the fatal train.” He looked 
out over the house from his high perch, and his 
countenance began to darken ; he slowly raised his 
hand, and pointed — 

‘ ‘ There stands the assassin ! ’ ’ 

For a moment the house was paralyzed with 
amazement ; then twenty voices burst out with : 

“Sammy Hillyer? Oh, helly no! Him? It’s 
pure foolishness I ” 

“ Take care, gentlemen — be not hasty. Observe 
— he has the blood-mark on his brow.” 

Hillyer turned white with fright. He was near to 
crying. He turned this way and that, appealing to 
every face for help and sympathy ; and held out his 
supplicating hands toward Holmes and began to 
plead : 

Don't y oh, don’t! I never did it; I give my 
word I never did it. The way I got this hurt on 
my forehead was — ’ ’ 

“Arrest him, constable!” cried Holmes, “I 
will swear out the warrant.” 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 35 1 

The constable moved reluctantly forward — hesi- 
tated — stopped. 

Hillyer broke out with another appeal. “ Oh, 
Archy, don’t let them do it; it would kill mother! 
You know how I got the hurt. Tell them, and 
save me, Archy; save me I ” 

Stillman worked his way to the front, and said : 

“Yes, I’ll save you. Don’t be afraid.’’ Then 
he said to the house, “ Never mind how he got the 
hurt; it hasn’t anything to do with this case, and 
isn’t of any consequence.’’ 

“ God bless you, Archy, for a true friend I ’’ 

“ Hurrah for Archy I Go in, boy, and play ’em 
a knock-down flush to their two pair ’n’ a jack! ’’ 
shouted the house, pride in their home talent and a 
patriotic sentiment of loyalty to it rising suddenly 
in the public heart and changing the whole attitude 
of the situation. 

Young Stillman waited for the noise to cease; 
then he said, 

“ I will ask Tom Jeffries to stand by that door 
yonder, and Constable Harris to stand by the other 
one here, and not let anybody leave the room.’’ 

“ Said and done. Go on, old man ! ’’ 

“The criminal is present, I believe. I will show 
him to you before long, in case I am right in my 
guess. Now I will tell you all about the tragedy, 
from start to finish. The motive wasn't robbery; 
it was revenge. The murderer wasn't light-witted. 
He didn't stand 622 feet away. He didn't get hit 


352 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


with a piece of wood. He didn^ t place the explo- 
sive against the cabin. He didn't bring a shot-bag 
with him, and he wasn't left-handed. With the ex- 
ception of these errors, the distinguished guest’s 
statement of the case is substantially correct.” 

A comfortable laugh rippled over the house ; 
friend nodded to friend, as much as to say, ” That’s 
the word, with the bark on it. Good lad, good boy. 
He ain’t lowering his flag any ! ” 

The guest’s serenity was not disturbed. Stillman 
resumed : 

‘ ‘ I also have some witnesses ; and I will presently 
tell you where you can find some more.” He held 
up a piece of coarse wire; the crowd craned their 
necks to see. ” It has a smooth coating of melted 
tallow on it. And here is a candle which is burned 
half-way down. The remaining half of it has marks 
cut upon it an inch apart. Soon I will tell you where 
I found these things. I will now put aside reasonings, 
guesses, the impressive hitchings of odds and ends 
of clews together, and the other showy theatricals of 
the detective trade, and tell you in a plain, straight- 
forward way just how this dismal thing happened.” 

He paused a moment, for effect — to allow silence 
and suspense to intensify and concentrate the house’s 
interest ; then he went on : 

The assassin studied out his plan with a good 
deal of pains. It was a good plan, very ingenious, 
and showed an intelligent mind, not a feeble one. 
It was a plan which was well calculated to ward off 


353 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

all suspicion from its inventor. In the first place, 
he marked a candle into spaces an inch apart, and lit 
it and timed it. He found it took three hours to 
burn four inches of it. I tried it myself for half an 
hour, awhile ago, upstairs here, while the inquiry 
into Flint Buckner’s character and ways was being 
conducted in this room, and I arrived in that way at 
the rate of a candle’s consumption when sheltered 
from the wind. Having proved his trial-candle’s 
rate, he blew it out — I have already shown it to you 
— and put his inch-marks on a fresh one. 

“ He put the fresh one into a tin candlestick. 
Then at the five-hour mark he bored a hole through 
the candle with a red-hot wire. I have already 
shown you the wire, with a smooth coat of tallow on 
it — tallow that had been melted and had cooled. 

“With labor — very hard labor, I should say — 
he struggled up through the stiff chaparral that 
clothes the steep hillside back of Flint Buckner’s 
place, tugging an empty flour-barrel with him. He 
placed it in that absolutely secure hiding-place, and 
in the bottom of it he set the candlestick. Then he 
measured off about thirty-five feet of fuse — the 
barrel’s distance from the back of the cabin. He 
bored a hole in the side of the barrel — here is the 
large gimlet he did it with. He went on and 
finished his work; and when it was done, one end of 
the fuse was in Buckner’s cabin, and the other end, 
with a notch chipped in it to expose the powder, was 
in the hole in the candle — timed to blow the place 


354 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


up at one o’clock this morning, provided the candle 
was lit about eight o’clock yesterday evening — 
which I am betting it was — and provided there was 
an explosive in the cabin and connected with that 
end of the fuse — which I am also betting there was, 
though I can’t prove it. Boys, the barrel is there in 
the chaparral, the candle’s remains are in it in the tin 
stick; the burnt-out fuse is in the gimlet-hole, the 
other end is down the hill where the late cabin 
stood. I saw them all an hour or two ago, when 
the Professor here was measuring off unimplicated 
vacancies and collecting relics that hadn’t anything 
to do with the case.” 

He paused. The house drew a long, deep breath, 
shook its strained cords and muscles free and burst 
into cheers. ‘‘Dang him!” said Ham Sandwich, 
‘‘ that’s why he was snooping around in the chaparral, 
instead of picking up points out of the P’fessor’s 
game. Looky here — he ain’t no fool, boys.” 

” No, sir ! Why, great Scott — ” 

But Stillman was resuming: 

‘‘ While we were out yonder an hour or two ago, 
the owner of the gimlet and the trial-candle took 
them from a place where he had concealed them — 
it was not a good place — and carried them to what 
he probably thought was a better one, two hundred 
yards up in the pine woods, and hid them there, 
covering them over with pine needles. It was there 
that I found them. The gimlet exactly fits the hole 
in the barrel. And now — ” 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 355 

The Extraordinary Man interrupted him. He 
said, sarcastically: 

“ We have had a very pretty fairy-tale, gentlemen 
— very pretty indeed. Now I would like to ask this 
young man a question or two.’* 

Some of the boys winced, and Ferguson said, 

“I’m afraid Archy’s going to catch it now.’’ 

The others lost their smiles and sobered down. 
Mr. Holmes said : 

‘ ‘ Let us proceed to examine into this fairy-tale in 
a consecutive and orderly way — by geometrical 
progression, so to speak — linking detail to detail in 
a steadily advancing and remorselessly consistent 
and unassailable march upon this tinsel toy-fortress 
of error, the dream-fabric of a callow imagination. 
To begin with, young sir, I desire to ask you but 
three questions at present — at prese^it. Did I 
understand you to say it was your opinion that the 
supposititious candle was lighted at about eight 
o’clock yesterday evening? ’’ 

“ Yes, sir — about eight.’’ 

“ Could you say exactly eight? ’’ 

“ Well, no, I couldn’t be that exact.’’ 

“ Um. If a person had been passing along there 
just about that time, he would have been almost sure 
to encounter that assassin, do you think? ’’ 

“ Yes, I should think so.’’ 

“ Thank you, that is all. For the present. I say, 
all for the present.^' 

‘ ‘ Dern him ! he’s laying for Archy,” said Ferguson. 


356 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


“It’s so,” said Ham Sandwich. “I don’t like 
the look of it.’’ 

Stillman said, glancing at the guest, 

‘ ‘ I was along there myself at half past eight — 
no, about nine.’’ 

“In-deed? This is interesting — this is very in- 
teresting. Perhaps you encountered the assassin ?’’ 

“ No, I encountered no one.’’ 

‘ ‘ Ah. Then — if you will excuse the remark — I 
do not quite see the relevancy of the information.’’ 

“ It has none. At present. I say it has none — 
at present.’’ 

He paused. Presently he resumed: “I did not 
encounter the assassin, but I am on his track, I am 
sure, for I believe he is in this room. I will ask you 
all to pass one by one in front of me — here, where 
there is a good light — so that I can see your feet.’’ 

A buzz of excitement swept the place, and the 
march began, the guest looking on with an iron 
attempi at gravity which was not an unqualified suc- 
cess. Stillman stooped, shaded his eyes with his 
hand, and gazed down intently at each pair of feet 
as it passed. Fifty men tramped monotonously by 
— with no result. Sixty. Seventy. The thing was 
beginning to look absurd. The guest remarked, 
with suave irony, 

“ Assassins appear to be scarce this evening.’’ 

The house saw the humor of it, and refreshed it- 
self with a cordial laugh. Ten or twelve more can- 
didates tramped by — no, da7tced by, with airy and 



STILLMAN ACCUSES SHERLOCK HOLMES 






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ridiculous capers which convulsed the spectators — 
then suddenly Stillman put out his hand and said, 
This is the assassin ! ’ ’ 

“ Fetlock Jones, by the great Sanhedrim ! ” roared 
the crowd ; and at once let fly a pyrotechnic explo- 
sion and dazzle and confusion of stirring remarks in- 
spired by the situation. 

At the height of the turmoil the guest stretched 
out his hand, commanding peace. The authority of 
a great name and a great personality laid its mysteri- 
ous compulsion upon the house, and it obeyed. 
Out of the panting calm which succeeded, the guest 
spoke, saying, with dignity and feeling: 

“ This is serious. It strikes at an innocent life. 
Innocent beyond suspicion ! Innocent beyond per- 
adventure ! Hear me prove it ; observe how simple 
a fact can brush out of existence this witless lie. 
Listen. My friends, that lad was never out of my 
sight yesterday evening at any time ! ’ ’ 

It made a deep impression. Men turned their 
eyes upon Stillman with grave inquiry in them. 
His face brightened, and he said, 

“ I knew there was another one! ” He stepped 
briskly to the table and glanced at the guest’s feet, 
then up at his face, and said : “ You were with him ! 
You were not fifty steps from him when he lit the 
candle that by and by fired the powder I ” {Sensa- 
tion?) “And what is more, you furnished the 
matches yourself ! ’ ’ 

Plainly the guest seemed hit ; it looked so to the 
23 


358 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


public. He opened his mouth to speak; the words 
did not come freely. 

‘ ‘ This — er — this is insanity — this — ’ ’ 

Stillman pressed his evident advantage home. He 
held up a charred match. 

“ Here is one of them. I found it in the barrel 
— and there’s another one there.” 

The guest found his voice at once. 

“ Yes — and put them there yourself! ” 

It was recognized a good shot. Stillman retorted. 
“ It is wax — a breed unknown to this camp. I 
am ready to be searched for the box. Are you? ” 
The guest was staggered this time — the dullest 
eye could see it. He fumbled with his hands ; once 
or twice his lips moved, but the words did not come. 
The house waited and watched, in tense suspense, 
the stillness adding effect to the situation. Presently 
Stillman said, gently, 

” We are waiting for^your decision.” 

There was silence again during several moments ; 
then the guest answered, in a low voice, 

” I refuse to be searched.” 

There was no noisy demonstration, but all about 
the house one voice after another muttered : 

‘‘ That settles it! He’s Archy’s meat.” 

What to do now? Nobody seemed to know. It 
was an embarrassing situation for the moment — 
merely, of course, because matters had taken such a 
sudden and unexpected turn that these unpracticed 
minds were not prepared for it, and had come to a 


359 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

standstill, like a stopped clock, under the shock. 
But after a little the machinery began to work again, 
tentatively, and by twos and threes the men put their 
heads together and privately buzzed over this and 
that and the other proposition. One of these 
propositions met with much favor ; it was, to confer 
upon the assassin a vote of thanks for removing Flint 
Buckner, and let him go. But the cooler heads op- 
posed it, pointing out that addled brains in the East- 
ern States would pronounce it a scandal, and make 
no end of foolish noise about it. Finally the cool 
heads got the upper hand, and obtained general con- 
sent to a proposition of their own ; their leader then 
called the house to order and stated it — to this effect : 
that Fetlock Jones be jailed and put upon trial. 

The motion was carried. Apparently there was 
nothing further to do now, and the people were glad, 
for, privately, they were impatient to get out and 
rush to the scene of the tragedy, and see whether that 
barrel and the other things were really there or not. 

But no — the break-up got a check. The sur- 
prises were not over yet. For a while Fetlock Jones 
had been silently sobbing, unnoticed in the absorb- 
ing excitements which had been following one an- 
other so persistently for some time; but when his 
arrest and trial were decreed, he broke out despair- 
ingly, and said: 

“ No ! it’s no use. I don’t want any jail, I don’t 
want any trial; I’ve had all the hard luck I want, 
and all the miseries. Hang me now, and let me 


360 A Double-Barreled Detective Story 

out! It would all come out, anyway — there 
couldn’t anything save me. He has told it all, just 
as if he’d been with me and seen it — I don’t know 
how he found out; and you’ll find the barrel and 
things, and then I wouldn’t have any chance any 
more. I killed him ; and you' d have done it too, if 
he’d treated you like a dog, and you only a boy, 
and weak and poor, and not a friend to help you.” 

‘ ‘ And served him damned well right ! ’ ’ broke in 
Ham Sandwich. ” Looky here, boys — ” 

From the constable : ‘ ‘ Order ! Order, gentle- 
men I ” 

A voice : ‘ ‘ Did your uncle know what you was 

up to?” 

“No, he didn’t.” 

“ Did he give you the matches, sure enough? ” 

“ Yes, he did; but he didn’t know what I wanted 
them for.” 

‘ ‘ When you was out on such a business as that, 
how did you venture to risk having him along — and 
him a detective ? How’s that? ” 

The boy hesitated, fumbled with his buttons in an 
embarrassed way, then said, shyly, 

“I know about detectives, on account of having 
them in the family; and if you don’t want them to 
find out about a thing, it’s best to have them around 
when you do it.” 

The cyclone of laughter which greeted this naive 
discharge of wisdom did not modify the poor little 
waif’s embarrassment in any large degree. 


CHAPTER IX. 

r ROM a letter to Mrs. Stillman, dated merely 
“ Tuesday.” 

Fetlock Jones was put under lock and key in an unoccupied log 
cabin, and left there to await his trial. Constable Harris provided him 
with a couple of days’ rations, instructed him to keep a good guard 
over himself, and promised to look in on him as soon as further supplies 
should be due. 

Next morning a score of us went with Hillyer, out of friendship, 
and helped him bury his late relative, the unlamented Buckner, and I 
acted as first assistant pall-bearer, Hillyer acting as chief. Just as we 
had finished our labors a ragged and melancholy stranger, carrying an 
old hand-bag, limped by with his head down, and I caught the scent I 
had chased around the globe ! It was the odor of Paradise to my per- 
ishing hope ! 

In a moment I was at his side and had laid a gentle hand upon his 
shoulder. He slumped to the ground as if a stroke of lightning had 
withered him in his tracks; and as the boys came running he struggled 
to his knees and put up his pleading hands to me, and out of his chat- 
tering jaws he begged me to persecute him no more, and said, 

“ You have hunted me around the world, Sherlock Holmes, yet God 
is my witness I have never done any man harm ! ” 

A glance at his wild eyes showed us that he was insane. That was 
my work, mother I The tidings of your death can some day repeat the 
misery I felt in that moment, but nothing else can ever do it. The boys 
lifted him up, and gathered about him, and were full of pity of him, 
and said the gentlest and touchingest things to him, and said cheer up 
and don’t be troubled, he was among friends now, and they would take 
care of him, and protect him, and hang any man that laid a hand on 
him. They are just like so many mothers, the rough mining-camp boys 

( 361 ) 


362 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


are, when you wake up the south side of their hearts; yes, and just 
like so many reckless and unreasoning children when you wake up the 
opposite side of that muscle. They did everything they could think of 
to comfort him, but nothing succeeded until Wells-Fargo Ferguson, who 
is a clever strategist, said, 

“ If it’s only Sherlock Holmes that’s troubling [you, you needn’t 
worry any more.” 

“Why? ” asked the forlorn lunatic, eagerly. 

“Because he’s dead again.” 

“Dead! Dead! Oh, don’t trifle with a poor wreck like me. Is 
he dead? On honor, now — is he telling me true, boys? ” 

“True as you’re standing there !” said. Ham Sandwich, and they all 
backed up the statement in a body. 

“ They hung him in San Bernardino last week,” added Ferguson, 
clinching the matter, “ whilst he was searching around after you. Mis- 
took him for another man. They’re sorry, but they can’t help it now.” 

“They’re a-building him a monument,” said Ham Sandwich, with 
the air of a person who had contributed to it, and knew. 

“James Walker” drew a deep sigh — evidently a sigh of relief — 
and said nothing; but his eyes lost something of their wildness, his 
countenance cleared visibly, and its drawn look relaxed a little. We all 
went to our cabin, and the boys cooked him the best dinner the camp 
could furnish the materials for, and while they were about it Hillyer and 
I outfitted him from hat to shoe-leather with new clothes of ours, and 
made a comely and presentable old gentleman of him. “Old” is the 
right word, and a pity, too : old by the droop of him, and the frost upon 
his hair, and the marks which sorrow and distress have left upon his face; 
though he is only in his prime in the matter of years. While he ate, 
we smoked and chatted; and when he was finishing he found his voice 
at last, and of his own accord broke out with his personal history. I 
cannot furnish his exact words, but I will come as near it as I can. 

THE “WRONG MAN’S ” STORY. 

It happened like this : I was in Denver. I had been there many 
years; sometimes I remember how many, sometimes I don’t — but it 
isn’t any matter. All of a sudden I got a notice to leave, or I would 
be exposed for a horrible crime committed long before — years and years 
before — in the East. 

I knew about that crime, but I was not the criminal; it was a cousin 
of mine of the same name. What should I better do? My head was 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


363 


all disordered by fear, and I didn’t know. I was allowed very little 
time — only one day, I think it was. I would be mined if I was pub- 
lished, and the people would l5mch me, and not believe what I said. 
It is always the way with lynchings ; when they find out it is a mistake 
they are sorry, but it is too late, — the same as it was with Mr. Holmes, 
you see. So I said I would sell out and get money to live on, and run 
away until it blew over and I could come back with my proofs. Then 
I escaped in the night and went a long way ofi in the mountains some- 
where, and lived disguised and had a false name. 

I got more and more troubled and worried, and my troubles made 
me see spirits and hear voices, and I could not think straight and clear 
on any subject, but got confused and involved and had to give it up, 
because my head hurt so. It got to be worse and worse; more spirits 
and more voices. They were about me all the time; at first only in the 
night, then in the day too. They were always whispering around my 
bed and plotting against me, and it broke my sleep and kept me fagged 
out, because I got no good rest. 

And then came the worst. One night the whispers said, “We’ll 
never manage, because we can’t see him, and so can’t point him out to 
the people.” 

They sighed; then one said: “We must bring Sherlock Holmes. 
He can be here in twelve days.” 

They all agreed, and whispered and jibbered with joy. But my 
heart broke; for I had read about that man, and knew what it would 
be to have him upon my track, with his superhuman penetration and 
tireless energies. 

The spirits went away to fetch him, and I got up at once in the 
middle of the night and fled away, carrying nothing but the hand-bag 
that had my money in it — thirty thousand dollars; two-thirds of it are 
in the bag there yet. It was forty days before that man caught up on 
my track. I just escaped. From habit he had written his real name 
on a tavern register, but had scratched it out and written “Dagget 
Barclay” in the place of it. But fear gives you a watchful eye and 
keen, and I read the true name through the scratches, and , fled hke a 
deer. 

He has hunted me all over this world for three years and a half — 
the Pacific States, Australasia, India — everywhere you can think of; 
then back to Mexico and up to California again, giving me hardly any 
rest; but that name on the registers always saved me, and what is left 


364 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


of me is alive yet. And I am so tired ! A cruel time he has given me, 
yet I give you my honor I have never harmed him nor any man. 

That was the end of the story, and it stirred those boys to blood- 
heat, be sure of it. As for me — each word burnt a hole in me where 
it struck. 

We voted that the old man should bunk with us, and be my guest 
and Hillyer’s. I shall keep my own counsel, naturally; but as soon as 
he is well rested and nourished, I shall take him to Denver and rehabili- 
tate his fortunes. 

The boys gave the old fellow the bone-mashing good-fellowship 
handshake of the mines, and then scattered away to spread the news. 

At dawn next morning Wells-Fargo Ferguson and Ham Sandwich 
called us softly out, and said, privately : 

“That news about the way that old stranger has been treated has 
spread all around, and the camps are up. They are piling in from 
ever3rwhere, and are going to lynch the P’fessor. Constable Harris is 
in a dead funk, and has telephoned the sheriff. Come along ! ” 

We started on a run. The others were privileged to feel as they 
chose, but in my heart’s privacy I hoped the sheriff would arrive in 
time; for I had small desire that Sherlock Holmes should hang for my 
deeds, as you can easily believe. I had heard a good deal about the 
sheriff, but for reassurance’s sake I asked, 

“ Can he stop a mob? ” 

“ Can he stop a mob ! Can Jack Fairfax stop a mob ! Well, I 
should smile ! Ex-desperado — nineteen scalps on his string. Can he ! 
Oh, \say!^' 

As we tore up the gulch, distant cries and shouts and yells rose 
faintly on the still air, and grew steadily in strength as we raced along. 
Roar after roar burst out, stronger and stronger, nearer and nearer; and 
at last, when we closed up upon the multitude massed in the open area 
in front of the tavern, the crash of sound was deafening. Some brutal 
roughs from Daly’s gorge had Holmes in their grip, and he was the 
calmest man there; a contemptuous smile played about his lips, and if 
any fear of death was in his British heart, his iron personality was 
master of it and no sign of it was allowed to appear. 

“ Come to a vote, men ! ” This from one of the Daly gang. Shad- 
belly Higgins. “Quick ! is it hang, or shoot? ” 

“ Neither ! ” shouted one of his comrades. “ He’d be alive ?gpir> 
in a week; burning’s the only permanency for him,” 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 365 

The gangs from all the outlying camps burst out in a thunder-crash 
of approval, and went struggling and surging toward the prisoner, and 
closed around him, shouting, “ Fire ! fire’s the ticket ! ” They dragged 
him to the horse-post, backed him against it, chained him to it, and 
piled wood and pine cones around him waist-deep. Still the strong face 
did not blench, and still the scornful smile played about the thin lips, 

“ A match I fetch a match ! ” 

Shadbelly struck it, shaded it with his hand, stooped, and held it 
under a pine cone. A deep silence fell upon the mob. The cone 
caught, a tiny flame flickered about it a moment or two. I seemed to 
catch the sound of distant hoofs — it grew more distinct — still more 
and more distinct, more and more definite, but the absorbed crowd did 
not appear to notice it. The match went out. The man struck another, 
stooped, and again the flame rose; this time it took hold and began to 
spread — here and there men turned away their faces. The executioner 
stood with the charred match in his fingers, watching his work. The 
hoof-beats turned a projecting crag, and now they came thundering down 
upon us. Almost the next moment there was a shout — 

. “ The sheriff ! ” 

And straightway he came tearing into the midst, stood his horse 
almost on his hind feet, and said, 

“Fall back, you gutter-snipes ! ” 

He was obeyed. By all but their leader. He stood his ground, 
and his hand went to his revolver. The sheriff covered him promptly, 
and said : 

“Drop your hand, you parlor-desperado. Kick the fire away. 
Now unchain the stranger.” 

The parlor-desperado obeyed. Then the sheriff made a speech; 
sitting his horse at martial ease, and not warming his words with any 
touch of fire, but delivering them in a measured and deliberate way, and 
in a tone which harmonized with their character and made them impres- 
sively disrespectful. 

“You’re a nice lot — now ain’t you? Just about eligible to travel 
with this bilk here — Shadbelly Higgins — this loud-mouthed sneak that 
shoots people in the back and calls himself a desperado. If there’s any- 
thing I do particularly despise, it’s a lynching mob; I’ve never seen 
one that had a man in it. It has to tally up a hundred against one be- 
fore it can pump up pluck enough to tackle a sick tailor. It’s made up 
of cowards, and so is the community that breeds it; and ninety-nine 


366 


A Double-Barreled Detective Story 


times out of a hundred the sheriff’s another one. ’ ’ He paused — appar- 
ently to turn that last idea over in his mind and taste the juice of it — 
then he went on: “The sheriff that lets a mob take a prisoner away 
from him is the lowest-down coward there is. By the statistics there 
was a hundred and eighty-two of them drawing sneak pay in America 
last year. By the way it’s going, pretty soon there’ll be a new disease 
in the doctor books — sheriff complaint.''^ That idea pleased him — 
any one could see it. “ People will say, ‘ Sheriff sick again? ’ ‘ Yes; 

got the same old thing.’ And next there’U be a new title. People 
won’t say, *He’s running for sheriff of Rapaho County,’ for instance; 
they’ll say, ‘ He’s running for Coward of Rapaho.’ Lord, the idea of 
a grown-up person being afraid of a lynch mob ! ” 

He turned an eye on the captive, and said, “ Stranger, who are you, 
and what have you been doing? ” 

“ My name is Sherlock Holmes, and I have not been doing any- 
thing.” 

It was wonderful, the impression which the sound of that name 
made on the sheriff, notwithstanding he must have come posted. He 
spoke up with feeling, and said it was a blot on the country that a man 
whose marvelous exploits had filled the world with their fame and their 
ingenuity, and whose histories of them had won every reader’s heart by 
the brilliancy and charm of their literary setting, should be visited under 
the Stars and Stripes by an outrage like this. He apologized in the 
name of the whole nation, and made Holmes a most handsome bow, 
and told Constable Harris to see him to his quarters, and hold himself 
personally responsible if he was molested again. Then he turned to the 
mob and said: 

“Hunt your holes, you scum!” which they did; then he said: 
“ Follow me, Shadbelly; I’ll take care of your case myself. No — keep 
your pop-gun; whenever I see the day that I’ll be afraid to have you be- 
hind me with that thing, it’ll be time for me to join last year’s hundred 
and eighty-two;” and he rode off in a walk, Shadbelly following. 

When we were on our way back to our cabin, toward breakfast-time, 
we ran upon the news that Fetlock Jones had escaped from his lock-up 
in the night and is gone ! Nobody is sorry. Let his uncle track him 
out if he likes; it is in his line; the camp is not interested. 


CHAPTER X. 


days later. 

“James Walker” is all right in body now, and his mind 
shows improvement too. I start with him for Denver to-morrow 
morning. 

Next night. Brief note ^ mailed at a way station. 

As we were starting, this morning, Hillyer whispered to me : “ Keep 
this news from Walker until you think it safe and not likely to disturb 
his mind and check his improvement ; the ancient crime he spoke of 
was really committed — and by his cousin, as he said. We buried the 
real criminal the other day — the unhappiest man that has lived in a 
century — Flint Buckner. His real name was Jacob Fuller! ” There, 
mother, by help of me, an unwitting mourner, your husband and my 
father is in his grave. Let him rest. 


THE END. 


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